Honeywell International is not in the business of making cars, planes, gas, or batteries. However, the USD35 billion Charlotte, North Carolina-based firm with a sizable presence in India develops products and solutions that are revolutionizing all of these industries and more. Focusing heavily on R&D, experimenting with novel materials, fuels, and chemicals, including refrigerants, is essential to bringing about that transformation. Honeywell invested USD732 million into research and development in the first half of this year. The end result should be items that are more durable and efficient. Honeywell, for one, has released a Catalyst Coated Membrane (CCM) for electrolysers that it says may increase hydrogen production by 55 percent while decreasing electrolyser capital expenditures by 35 percent. Honeywell has announced plans to refocus its business operations on automation, the future of aviation, and the energy transition. ET Prime visited the Charlotte laboratories of Honeywell to speak with Gavin Towler, the company's corporate vice president and chief scientist, sustainable technologies, about sustainability solutions, the future of aviation, the use of artificial intelligence and digital automation, and how India can make its growth sustainable, among other topics. Towler collaborates with technical teams at many Honeywell divisions and holds 77 patents for his inventions.
Edited excerpts: What are the challenges in emission reduction science? Can it be sustainable, and eco-friendly? The biggest challenges in emissions reduction are in accurately measuring and monitoring emissions and having good data available to guide investment decisions in mitigation plans. Take methane emissions as an example. Nobody wants to emit methane, as it is a very valuable and useful fuel, but you can’t see it, so you don’t know if it is leaking from gas wells, pipes, or storage tanks. Methane has a GHG (Greenhouse Gases) impact 28 times worse than carbon dioxide, so reducing leaks not only reduces global warming but also has a payback because you can sell the gas. So, we want to be able to find the leaks and fix them, and that is why Honeywell developed the Rebellion gas sensing cameras, which can see the infrared spectrum and hence, see methane. With this camera, you can see where methane is leaking from equipment and then do maintenance to fix the leak. So, this is eco-friendly and sustainable and has a payback–an example of how new technology can improve sustainability without increasing costs.
India is among the fastest-growing regions in the world today, with a lot of focus on manufacturing, EVs, and an increasing consumption of electronic products. How can India avoid the mistakes that the developed world made in manufacturing, polluting industries, and so on? India aims to reach net zero emissions by 2070 and take significant steps before 2030 to reach that goal. The country is making strong moves to achieve this with a series of actions such as the government’s ‘Long-term Low-carbon development strategy’ focused on pushing towards renewable power, energy efficiency, low-carbon transport through cleaner fuels, including electric mobility, green hydrogen, exploration of low-carbon options in hard-to-abate sectors like iron and steel manufacturing, mining, etc. India’s geography is naturally suited for renewable power production with its mountainous region in the Himalayas holding the potential for half of the hydropower required in the country. With its coastline and sunlight conditions, it already is the world’s fifth-largest producer of solar and wind energy and has the potential for more. India also has several regions with net zero electricity (that is, from renewable sources) and more can be created through the establishment of microgrids, which connect and balance the energy flows between various energy assets and loads. These microgrid-enabled regions could serve as net-zero special economic zones that could act as magnets for attracting foreign capital investment and spur sustainable economic growth. Microgrids are managed as virtual power plants with controls managing response to energy demand. Today, in India, microgrids are providing reliable electricity for critical infrastructures such as warehouses, pharmaceuticals, municipalities, defence bases, airports, and manufacturing facilities and continued deployment of microgrids will be key to reaching net zero emissions country-wide. In addition to moving to renewable sources of energy, decarbonising to reach net zero includes the acceleration of sustainable transportation choices such as adopting green diesel fuel, which is produced from waste fats, oils, and greases.
What are the other areas that will contribute to India’s sustainable goals? Other areas that will contribute to India reaching its sustainability goal include: · Embracing sustainable aviation fuel, which has the potential to reduce a flight’s carbon footprint by 60-80% depending on the feedstock used.
· Implementing measures in buildings to increase efficient use of energy and resources through AI-based sensors and conducting urban planning with sustainability as a goal.
· Leveraging India’s vast agricultural base to convert its waste into biogas, which can be decarbonised through gas separation technologies.
· Inserting green hydrogen produced through membrane purification into the gas pipeline mix displaces methane and deploys sustainable cold storage in its food supply chain.
· Embracing a circular economy approach. This involves minimising waste and maximising resource utilisation through sharing, reusing, and recycling.
It's a paradigm shift from the traditional linear model of 'take, make, dispose' to one that promotes resource efficiency and reduces environmental impact. The path to decarbonising India will also have to be a public-private partnership with incentives for those corporates undertaking these actions.
How does Artificial Intelligence (AI) impact R&D. How does Honeywell use AI? AI represents not just a tool but a paradigm shift in how organisations approach the process of innovation. At the heart of AI's impact lies its extraordinary capacity to swiftly and accurately process vast datasets. This data-driven capability is revolutionizing R&D in several significant ways: · AI accelerates the generation of insights, enabling researchers to extract knowledge at an unprecedented pace. This has the potential to significantly shorten the R&D lifecycle, expediting the development and introduction of ground-breaking products and innovations.
· AI's predictive modelling capabilities are reshaping R&D by enabling researchers to forecast trends, identify potential challenges, and simulate diverse scenarios. This foresight empowers R&D teams to take proactive measures and engage in informed decision-making.
The world is shifting from fossil fuels to clean tech. However, challenges like polluting EV manufacturing processes, mineral extraction, and battery disposal remain. How can this be solved? As society moves from using fossil fuels toward electricity to power our daily lives, the transportation, industrial, utilities, technology, and building sectors are undergoing major changes to accommodate this shift. Today, we offer a number of sensing and safety solutions to manufacturers of electric vehicles (EVs) and lithium-ion batteries that help make these technologies and their production safer and higher performing. Honeywell’s Energy storage system (ESS) enables electricity to be saved for later and controls when, where, and how it is deployed. This in turn allows for flexibility, more efficiencies, and new capabilities for the electric grid, ultimately reducing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced.
While achieving a completely pollution-free transition may be challenging, concerted efforts across multiple sectors and stakeholders can significantly reduce pollution and move towards a more sustainable, clean tech-driven future. The goal should be to minimise the negative environmental impacts associated with clean tech while maximising the benefits in terms of reducing overall pollution and combating climate change. Aerospace is a big focus area for Honeywell, accounting for around 35% of its business. What are the problems that you're trying to solve? How do you define aviation of the future? Two things will happen in future: One, more people are going to have access to aviation. There'll be more flights, new airports and more planes flying. The second thing is that there's going to be a change in how people use aviation. Some of the new applications in aviation, things like Urban Air Mobility, small-scale aviation, like drones can deliver packages. So, there will be aviation for package delivery, aviation for short distances and medium distances, and we'll see more long-haul intercontinental aviation. All of those call for different technical solutions.
For long-distance flights, there's still going to be jet engines and jet fuel where the carbon footprint of that jet fuel has to be decreased. And that means increasing the supply of sustainable aviation fuel. And that's why we're working on making sustainable aviation via new chemical routes like making methanol that has been made from captured CO2. All these routes will expand the fuel pool for sustainable aviation fuel for medium-haul flights.
Hydrogen-fuelled aircraft are also going to start appearing. We're working with some of the aerospace OEM companies around hydrogen-fuelled aircraft and that will be more like the 10- to 50-seater aircraft and fly relatively short distances between cities.
And in urban spaces, we will see flying taxis that run on electric power. These have been demonstrated. We'll be doing the same sort of routes that you'd do on the ground.
In areas like electric vehicles and batteries, is Honeywell looking at new materials to increase performance?
We are obviously not a vehicle manufacturer. But as a B2B industrial company, we sell a lot of systems that can go into electric vehicles. For example, chemicals that go into the batteries. The battery system requires cooling, cars also require heating and cooling. When you're driving a gasoline car in the winter you might need to put a heater, so you can take some heat from the engine. But if you have an electric car, that is not available. So, you need to have a heat pump inside the car to provide the car with heating. So, what would have been just an air conditioning system in a conventional gasoline car now becomes a heat pump system in an electric vehicle.
To heat and cool the cabin requires a refrigerant solution. We're working with the EV makers to create refrigerant solutions using low global warming refrigerants, the Solstice line of refrigerants. They can provide a comfortable environment in the vehicle, keep the battery safe and at the same time have a low global warming potential.
Is Honeywell talking to companies in India for battery chemistry tech and green hydrogen?
For green hydrogen, we are working with electrolyser manufacturers. Honeywell is currently in discussion with several manufacturers in India and elsewhere to supply catalyst-coated membranes (CCM). CCM helps separate hydrogen and oxygen through electrochemical reactions within the cell. Keeping hydrogen and oxygen separated is important for maximising hydrogen purity and ensuring process safety. CCM is a critical component in the electrolyser and can influence its cost and efficiency.
Will the Future be a mix of fuels or primarily hydrogen?
Hydrogen is the fuel of the future. Energy at the moment is a mix and in future, it's also going to be a mix. There'll be a role for wind power, solar power, hydrogen, battery, storage, and biofuels. All of these things are going to be needed. Because we can't rely on just one form of energy technology.
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