Biomass represents one of the most promising renewable sources of energy and chemicals for the future generations without depleting the non-renewable reserves. the global biofuel supply from biomass is 30–140 ej primary energy and is further likely to increase to 130–400 ej by 2070. presently a great deal of research is being carried out to convert the lignocellulosic biomass to fuels and chemicals. among them, pongamia pinnata, also known as karanja tree represents a promising biomass feedstock and the seed productivity of more than 200,000 t annum−1 from india. thereby karanja plantation program has been started by national oil seeds and vegetable oils development board, the ministry of agriculture india. karanja seeds are not suitable for direct consumption by humans or animals. the seeds are rich in non-edible oil (35–40%) a promising source of biodiesel. thus the project was initiated at csir iict hyderabad. it was executed in three phases and a spinoff with the proof of concept for the each developed process and product for the industrial and societal benefits. in the first phase of the project, the investigation was mainly concerned with the (a) novel and efficient conversion of karanja oil to produce bio-diesel (b) novel route for the recovery of by-product (glycerol) and (c) application of glycerol in the process intensified distillation techniques. the process for producing biodiesel using inedible oils was developed as a two-step process esterification followed by transesterification. this pre-treatment is essential as the inedible oils have a high content of free fatty acid (ranging from 2-25%) that need to be esterified before the process of transesterification can be carried out. the presence of water formed during esterification reaction is detrimental to a viable transesterification process. in the present work, we established an alternate method for removal of water by in situ hydrolysis reaction of methyl acetate. the dehydration using methyl acetate during esterification has yielded good results as the soap formed during transesterification was minimal. the results indicated high conversion of triglycerides to methyl ester for lower oil to methanol ratio and at a lower temperature. the study further explored the kinetics (mass transfer and chemical kinetics) to understand the reaction mechanisms that helped in the optimization of process variables and effect of temperature on overall reaction kinetics. an optimized molar ratio was established with oil to methanol (1: 6) with 1% catalyst weight for transesterification. the mixing characteristics including the critical speed and emulsion properties of the two immiscible phases (karanja oil and alcohol) that is observed during the biodiesel processing were also studied. the minimum critical speed of agitator for karanja was 550–650 rpm. based on the different experimental investigations a pilot scale (10 kg/h) was step-up for the continuous production of biodiesel from multi-feedstock (karanja oil, jatropha oil, and palm oil). the biodiesel produced met the astm, eu and bis specifications. during the bio-diesel production, the glycerol was produced as a by-product. in the recovery of glycerol from its aqueous solutions a novel and intensified route was proposed where the reaction of glycerol with acetaldehyde and acetone was performed to form glycerol acetals. the formed acetals were extracted using a solvent and the glycerol was finally recovered by hydrolysis of the extractant. the reactive extraction route investigated for the recovery of glycerol was more economical than the convention distillation. furthermore, since the demand for biodiesel increases in near future, more glycerol will be produced and could be oversupplied. thereby etherification of glycerol with 2-methylpropan-2-ol (2m2p) could be a promising solution to supersede conventional petroleum derived fuel additives. however, the presence of water in 2m2p restricts its applicability as an etherifying agent to produce tertbutyl ethers of glycerol. thus, an innovative process has been developed with proof of concept at the lab scale (height 2 m column with 10 theoretical stage) for the dehydration of 2m2p using the glycerol and salt (mgcl2) as an entrainer in extractive distillation. the present work exhibits a practical approach towards the design and optimization of saline entrainer extractive distillation based on a symmetric enrtl thermodynamic model. the karanja oil is around 30% maximum when extracted from the seed for its utilization as feedstock for biodiesel and glycerol production. the residual 70% of seedcake is a major waste product that cannot be utilized for applications that other seed cakes are used for, due to its toxic nature. as two tons of seed cake is generated as waste for every ton of biodiesel product in the second phase of the project value addition of seed-cake was addressed. in the second phase of the project, biochemical conversion process was developed to produce (a) sugar and (b) second generation bioethanol from of deoiled karanja cake. the advantage to using karanja seed cake is that it requires no physical pre-treatment, thereby resulting in a significant economic improvement. the biochemical conversion of deoiled karanja cake was performed by acid hydrolysis to producing c5 and c6 sugars in an optimized approach. extraction with ethanol was carried out to remove compounds that interfere with hydrolysis operation. the extractive-free karanja cake appeared somewhat decoloured compared to crude de-oiled karanja cake. the decolourization of karanja cake is due to the removal of traces of oil which is yellowish orange in color, flavonoids (e.g. karanjin, pongamol), and gums all of which were extracted in the ethanol as a solvent. the results have shown that 42% of extractive-free karanja cake was composed of carbohydrates i.e. 420 kg of carbohydrates per ton of extractive-free cake and therefore potentially can be converted to sugars. the study has established the optimized operating parameter (120 °c, 7.5 w% sulphuric acid, and acid to seed cake weight ratio of 15) with a maximum glucose formed was 245 kg/tons of extractive-free cake. in the preparation of second generation bioethanol, the neutralization and fermentation were added subsequent to acid hydrolysis. among the reaction variables considered, acid concentration and temperature showed a positive effect on glucose release from the biomass with hcl was found to be the best catalyst compared to h2so4 and h3po4 showing highest glucose formation at 100◦c with 6% w/whcl concentration. the energy required for this pretreatment was estimated to get an insight into the process energy demand (1080–1110 kj kg−1of seed cake). fermentation of hydrolysis product obtained from 6% hcl treatments gave 88.62 g ethanol kg−1 dry seed residue, respectively, corresponding to 41.28% of theoretical ethanol (214 g kg−1) formation, calculated based on ethanol produced per gram of carbohydrate in the seed residue. in the third phase of the project, the value addition to de-oiled karanja seed cake was by thermochemical conversion. the thermochemical conversion process was developed and established by designing and fabricating the indigenous prototype and pilot scale unit. a thermochemical conversion product includes (a) bio-char (b) bio-oil (c) syngas from the de-oiled karanja seed cake. torrefaction process was employed to the de-oiled karanja seed cake since it upgrades the efficiency of lignocellulosic bioresource with a significant reduction in h/c and o/c ratio thereby increasing the calorific value and hydrophobicity of the torrefied biomass. the operating temperature conditions for karanja seed cake were optimised and for an average weight loss of 30-35 %, the hhv was found in the range of 19.5-21.5 mj/kg and the total energy that remained in the fuel was around 80-85 % which is the favourable properties of torrefied biomass for its application as a fuel for gasification and combustion. for the production of syngas from the deoiled karanja seed cake a 2 kg/h entrained flow gasifier using oxygen and steam as a gasifying agent was designed as a part of a government aided project of the ministry of india to utilize the torrefied (70-80% energy saving) seed cake. the syngas produced was characterized by a hydrogen content that ranged between 40-50% and an lhv of 12mj/ nm3. the obtained syngas seems to be a suitable fuel and power applications. the gasification technology developed utilizing seed cake would aid to energy security and also generate employment in rural areas. the deoiled karanja seed cake was also pyrolyzed in an indigenously designed modular reactor to produce enhance quality biochar (24.5 mj/kg energy content) and bio-oils which have that has significant commercial potential. a spin-off from the three phases mentioned was taken to cater the sociological problems like water pollution in the watershed system. de-oiled karanja seed cake was used as an adsorbent for the removal of containments like (a) thorium and (c) zirconium from the nuclear industry waste water and (c) arsenic (d) fluoride from the groundwater. for the removal of radionuclides from aqueous streams batch, biosorption technique was employed. the characterization of the de-oiled karanja seed cake confirms the presence of amines, alcoholic, carboxylic, amide and nitro groups played a major role in biosorption. optimization of process parameters was carried out for the removal of the removal of thorium and zirconium from the effluent industrial steams using de-oiled karanja seed cake and the results showed a metal uptake capacity 260 mg/g and 23.44 mg/g respectively with a removal efficiency of 99.97%. furthermore, modifications/engineering was applied to the raw de-oiled karanja seed cake by subjecting it to the thermal treatment (carbonization) to 500 °c to produce biochar which was found effective in removal of arsenic from the ground water. a counter-current multiphase fluidized bed column was designed and fabricated for the removal of arsenic. the maximum uptake capacity of the biosorbent was obtained to be 0.226 mg/g which was comparable to other reported biosorbents. in the case of fluoride removal, a modification was provided in the biochar by acid treatment (concentrated hydrochloric acid (35-38%) in 1:15 ratio (wt/vol)) in order enhance its surface and functional properties and so-called engineered biochar. the novel and cost efficient process with the optimized parameters was able to remove the fluoride from the ground water with a maximum removal efficiency of 98.5 %. thus the project was able to developed different process and delivered the products like biodiesel, glycerol, sugars, bio-ethanol, syngas, bio-oil, biochar and bio-adsorbent from the karanja seeds in an effective and economical way.