Consider the following substances : I. Ethanol II. Nitroglycerine III. Urea Coal gasification technology can be used in the production of how many of them?

• Coal gasification reacts coal with steam and oxygen at high temperature to produce syngas — a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen — which is a feedstock for many chemicals.

• Syngas is the route to ammonia (via hydrogen), and ammonia with carbon dioxide gives urea; India's Talcher fertiliser plant is a coal-gasification-to-urea project — III is correct.

• Syngas can also be converted to ethanol, either catalytically or by fermenting it with microbes (as in some 'second-generation' ethanol processes) — I is correct.

• Nitroglycerine is made by nitrating glycerol with a nitric–sulphuric acid mixture; it is not derived from syngas or coal gasification — II is not correct.

• Hence two of the three, option (b).