The growing demand for lower-cost, nonfood, nonrainforest-based feedstock for biodiesel provides new opportunities and stimulate fresh investment in the produc­tion of lower-cost, alternative feedstock such as Jatropha. The governments in South Asia and Africa have identified between 20 and 50 million ha of suitable land for Jatropha cultivation. Indonesia has identified nearly 23 million ha of Jatropha land potential. One hectare of Jatropha can produce between 1.5 and 2.5 tons of seed oil. Jatropha is now becoming one of the prime contenders for biodiesel feed­stock supply in the near future [87] . This is due to the expansion of commercial — scale Jatropha production from India to Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America and to pilot programs and larger-scale ventures in China, Central Asia, South/ Central America, and southern parts of the USA.

A variety of equipment is available to obtain oil from the seeds. The oil can be extracted mechanically using a press (ram, hydraulic, or screw) or chemically using organic solvents or water [12, 26, 65] . three phase partitioning (TPP) extraction method [76], and supercritical extraction method [97].

The objective of oil preparation is to find an efficient and effective method in extracting oil from Jatropha seed. Technique of TPP with enzyme pretreatment and sonication constitutes an efficient procedure to obtain oil from Jatropha seed kernels. This technique can extract 97% oil within 2 h [77]. Extraction using ethyl acetate and methyl acetate is better than using hexane [83]. It was found that Gas-Assisted Mechanical Expression (GAME) process in Jatropha oil extraction is capable of reaching yields up to 30 wt.% higher than conventional expression under the same conditions [96] .