Jatropha Biofuel Industry: The Challenges

Abstract

Considering environmental issues and to reduce dependency on fossil fuel many countries have politicized to replenish fossil fuel demand from renewable sources. Citing the potential of Jatropha mostly without any scientific and technological backup, it is believed to be one of the most suitable biofuel candidates. Huge grants were released by many projects for huge plantation of Jatropha (millions of hectares). Unfortunately, there has been no significant progress, and Jatropha did not contribute much in the energy scenario. Unavailability of high-yielding cultivar, large-scale plantation without the evaluation of the planting materials, knowledge gap and basic research gap seem to be the main reasons for failure. Thus, the production of Jatropha as a biofuel has been confronted with various challenges such as production, oil extraction, conversion and also its use as a sustainable biofuel. In this chapter, we disclose the challenges and possible remedy for the contribution in the biofuel industry.