Tata Chemicals Limited

Tata Swach is an offline household water purification system which uses natural materials and cutting edge nanotechnology to deliver safe and affordable drinking water.

Unique and innovative:

Tata Swach's unique features are:

• Does not require electricity or running water, thus making it feasible for use in both urban and rural areas.
• Contains no harmful chemicals such as chlorine, iodine or bromine.
• Contains the innovative Tata Swach bulb that uses patented TSRF technology to destroy harmful bacteria and viruses in water and makes it safe to drink.
• Includes a unique Fuse system that prompts the user well in advance that it is time to replace the bulb. The bulb shuts down automatically once its purification power is exhausted.
• Each bulb purifies 3,000 litres of safe drinking water.

Today cement is a major success story for TCL. What makes it interesting is that this product was born out of an environmental initiative.

Tata Shudh cement is an example of how the company's philosophy of 'avoid, reduce and recycle' operates. The cement plant at Mithapur was set up solely to consume the solid waste generated during the manufacture of soda ash. The plant has an installed capacity of 1,500 tonnes per day and manufactures two varieties of cement under the brand name Shudh Cement:

• Ordinary Portland Cement (grade 53)
• Masonry Cement

Shudh Cement has already acquired a five per cent share of the cement market in Gujarat despite tough competition from its better-established competitors. It has been recognised in the market as a superior product, ideally suited for quality constructions. Incidentally, Shudh Cement far exceeds the quality norms and specifications prescribed by the Bureau of Indian Standards.

All three grades of Tata Chemicals' cement products are made in a modern plant with state-of-the-art technology, which includes quality control at every stage of the production process with an online x-ray analyser. This ensures a high level of consistency of quality in the manufacturing process.

Tata Chemicals' biofuels business has grown out of its extensive expertise in chemicals manufacturing, the agriculture and crop-nutrition space, and its research capability through the Innovation Centre. Its product portfolio includes

• Bioethanol
• Biodiesel

The business is currently focused on working with sustainably grown feedstock for first generation bioethanol and biodiesel. The bioethanol plant in Nanded, Maharashtra, is a 30KL/day facility using sweet sorghum as feedstock for bioethanol, and sweet sorghum bagasse as fuel for generating power. Sweet sorghum which contains 10-12 per cent sugar content can be crushed and processed like sugar cane and has the added advantages of reaching maturity within a 110-day period and requires only one-third quantity of water for cultivation.

For biodiesel, the company is currently focused on identifying, developing and cultivating superior varieties of jatropha as feedstock. TCL has also recently acquired an equity stake in JOil (Singapore), a jatropha seedling company founded by Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, that will set up tissue culture labs in India and other locations to develop jatropha seedlings using micro-propagation techniques. Tata Chemicals will also have exclusive marketing rights for JOil’s jatropha seedlings in India and East Africa.

Apart from this, the company is actively involved in biofuels research. TCL's Innovation Centre is working on advanced technologies including second generation biofuels, technology for better processing of feedstock and on by-products. The company plans to utilise the Nanded facility as a pilot plant for the research and development of cellulose-based bioethanol and biobutanol. TCL is also a part of ICRISAT’s Sweet Sorghum Ethanol Research Consortium (SSERC).