Bioethanol and biodiesel are coming under increased criticism for diverting food resources and driving up food prices across the world. Second-generation biofuels are gaining credibility as a solution. Praj Industries has achieved a major breakthrough technology for the production of bioethanol from lignocellulosic feedstock, creating an alternate agri-waste feedstock for ethanol production. The company has already filed a patent for this technology, Pramod Chaudhari, chairman, Praj said. "The US department of Energy has been spending billions of dollars on developing this technology and Praj has built this technology on its own resources. The first batch of the commercial demos for lignocellulosic feedstock in US and Europe is projected to be held in 2010-2011. Praj has kept a target of 2010 for the commercial demo of this technology,' he said. Work on this is being carried out at the company's R&D center Praj-Matrix, he said. KV Kamath, MD and CEO, ICICI Bank and Prakash Telang, executive director, Tata Motors inaugurated the centre. The company would be investing Rs 60 crore on the centre in two phases. "A gap exists between conventional and second generation technology and we are addressing this gap through sweet sorghum. Praj has developed a technology for converting sweet sorghum into ethanol and has bagged a project for setting up a plant for Tata Chemicals at Nanded,' Chaudhari told reporters. The Nanded plant has a capacity for making one crore litres of ethanol annually. Sweet sorghum trials by the company are being conducted in 18 countries to make it usable and popular and the Tata project could be a classic example of the success of this technology, he said. The company is also looking at improving yields of Jatropha and elephant grass and is working on testing the repeatability of testing algae for ethanol. Pilot trials will start in August to September 2008, and the company is looking for strategic partners, tie-ups with seed manufacturing Companies and agriculture universities for this, he said. Praj has also developed a high-energy ethanol mixture, with 25% to 35% more energy content, which could be directly blended with gasoline. It has filed two provisional patents. Chaudhari said the company would work with oil marketing Companies for commercialising the product blend.