Prospects and potential of fatty acid methyl esters of some non-edible seed oils for use as biodiesel in Pakistan

World's human population is increasing rapidly day by day and has been reached to 7.324 billion by 2015. This rapid increase in the population is expanding energy demands and led to an energy crisis throughout the world, leading to the search for alternative sources of energy. Biofuels are an attractive solution for offsetting fossil fuels for a number of different reasons. There are various potential feed stocks for biodiesel production. From an economic and social perspective edible seed oil should be substituted by non-edible, lower cost and reliable seed oil for biodiesel production. We reviewed in this paper previously declared potential plant sources of biodiesel reported in Pakistan. Various related aspects of these feed stocks has been reviewed from numerous current publications, including oil extraction techniques, fatty acid composition profile (FAC) of non-edible seed oils, biodiesel standards and characterizations. We concluded from our review that the easy availability of non-edible plant resources in various parts of the world pave ways for its use in biodiesel production. It can supplant the dependency on edible plant seed oil resources and to tackle with the devastating crises of energy in Pakistan and worldwide.