Cellegant Energy Systems Private Limited

In their own words

Cellegant Energy is incubated at the IIT Gandhinagar Innovation & Entrepreneurship Cell (IIEC) and aims to develop innovative, energy efficient and smart fuel cell based distributed combined heating, cooling and power (CHCP) solutions. For commercial/ civilian applications, we will utilize our intellectual property, knowledge and expertise to develop optimized energy systems that decrease greenhouse gas emissions, reduce total cost of ownership for the end-user and eliminate the dependence on imported petro-diesel. Potential customers include hospitals, hotels, data centers, mobile phone tower operators, small dairies and apartment complexes. We expect that the products and technologies developed by Cellegant will further India’s ambitions of a hydrogen economy and move the country closer to self-reliance in energy technologies. Further, for strategic applications, the company has licensed the diesel reformer technology developed at IIT Gandhinagar to convert liquid commercial/ military grade fuel to clean hydrogen for use on-board naval vessels. This technology is a key strategic enabler that allows silent operation of fuel cell power packs using logistic fuels that are widely available. Prof. Atul Bhargav, a faculty member in the discipline of Mechanical Engineering at IIT Gandhinagar since 2011, is Co-founder and Director at Cellegant. Currently, he is on sabbatical leave to establish the startup company incubated at IIEC, which is located inside IIT Gandhinagar campus. The diesel reformer technology was developed in his laboratory at IIT Gandhinagar, with funding from Defense Research & Development Organization (DRDO) and the Department of Education(DoE) through the Prime Minister’s IMPRINT initiative. This technology has so far resulted in a patent application for “A Cool Flame Reactor for Diesel Reformer” (Indian Patent Office application number 202021014014), an innovation that enables diesel fuel to be vaporized and homogenously mixed with a pilot flow of steam and air, without leaving residues or creating hotspots. This cost-effective strategy also does not use expensive catalytic materials, and is perhaps the first diesel reformer in the world that can operate at elevated pressures with pure oxygen as the oxidant. This homogenous vapor mixture is then supplied to the main reactor, which converts the diesel to a hydrogen-rich gas in an efficient manner. Cellegant and IIT Gandhinagar have agreed to license this technology to Cellegant, who will further develop this reformer system to meet stringent performance, reliability and robustness requirements for strategic applications. Prof. Bhargav has seventeen years of research and development experience in fuel cell systems and hydrogen, and leads the fuel cell systems research laboratory at IIT Gandhinagar. Through grants from government agencies such as the Department of Science & Technology (DST), the Science & Engineering Research Board (DST-SERB), DRDO laboratories (NMRL and IRDE), DRDO, Ministry of Education and consulting assignments from private industry (Thermax and others), Prof. Bhargav’s group has developed many technologies and systems for varied applications. These include India’s first fully indigenous methanol-based fuel cell system with on-board methanol reformer, a robust ethanol-to-hydrogen reformer and the diesel-to-hydrogen reformer mentioned above. Prior to IIT Gandhinagar, Prof. Bhargav was Product Development Engineer with Ballard Power Systems, one of the world’s largest fuel cell manufacturer. He has a PhD in fuel cell systems with a focus on hydrogen purification from the University of Maryland College Park. Prof. Bhargav completed BTech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Madras in 2002, and worked with Maruti Suzuki India for three years before joining the University of Maryland for his PhD. Mr. Nandakumar Kalath, Director, is the Chairman and Managing Director of Chemtrols Group and has four decades of experience in the engineering and services industry.

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