Natural gas, without the fossil part.
BioCNG is compressed biomethane: biogas from decomposing organic matter, cleaned until it is chemically almost the same gas that comes out of a fossil well, then compressed into cylinders. Same molecule, same engines, same pumps — a completely different origin.
Four steps, and the third is the difficult one.
Organic matter that is currently a disposal problem: crop residue, press mud, spent wash, market and food waste.
Sealed, oxygen-free tanks where bacteria break the material down over weeks and release biogas: roughly half methane, half carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulphide and moisture stripped out until what remains is almost pure methane.
The clean gas is compressed into cascades or cylinders and dispatched, exactly as fossil CNG is.
Purification is the whole difference.
Raw biogas will run a boiler. It will not run a vehicle, and it will not go into a cylinder: the carbon dioxide carries no energy but takes up volume, the hydrogen sulphide corrodes everything it touches, and the moisture makes both worse.
Per IS 16087:2025, the governing Indian Standard for compressed biogas: methane at least 95 mole per cent; CO₂, N₂ and O₂ together at most 5 mole per cent; hydrogen sulphide at most 3.7 mg/m³; total sulphur at most 10 mg/m³; moisture at most 5 mg/m³. Every batch is tested against it before dispatch.
BioCNG, CBG, RNG, biomethane.
| Term | What it means | Used where |
|---|---|---|
| Biogas | The raw gas straight out of the digester — about half methane, half carbon dioxide, wet and corrosive. Boiler fuel, not vehicle fuel. | Universal |
| Biomethane | Biogas after purification: almost pure methane, chemically interchangeable with natural gas. | Scientific and European use |
| CBG | Compressed Bio-Gas. The term used in Indian policy, including in the SATAT scheme and the blending obligation. | Indian policy and regulation |
| BioCNG | Compressed biomethane sold as a vehicle fuel. Commercially the same product as CBG. | Indian commercial use |
| RNG | Renewable Natural Gas. The North American term, most often used for gas injected into a pipeline grid. | United States and Canada |
The emissions case is not only the fuel it replaces.
Most clean fuels earn their case on one side of the ledger: what they displace. BioCNG earns on two, because the feedstock was going to emit anyway.
Left alone, residue rots in a field or a landfill and releases methane — a gas with roughly 28 times the warming effect of carbon dioxide. Capturing it prevents that release entirely.
Every kilogram burnt in an engine is a kilogram of fossil gas that stays in the ground, on a roughly one-to-one energy basis.
Digestate puts organic carbon and nutrients back into farmland, which is the third account most fuel comparisons never open.
Methane that would have escaped is captured and burnt instead. Burning it is the point.
See it built.
Our 10 TPD research plant runs every one of these steps at commercial scale, and publishes what it measures.