Despite many benefits, biodiesel is hampered by the production
of oilseed plants. Biodiesel is mostly produced from edible oils, such
as vegetable oils and animal fats, using conventional technology;
using edible oil for biodiesel instead of food is unacceptable [1]. As
food is a basic requirement for human, biodiesel feedstock should
not affect the food supply [2]. Moreover, the cost of feedstock is
a major economic factor in the development of biodiesel [3].
Therefore, alternative feedstock is urgently needed to enable biodiesel production from cheaper and non-food materials. To reduce
feedstock cost and relieve food resource contradictions, a lot of
research effort has been targeted to find new feedstock, such as
microalgae [4], Madhuca indica [5], waste grease [6e8], Jatropha
curcas [9] and muskmelon seed oil [10]. But these new methods
face many challenges, while most are still at laboratory scale