Biodiesel has gained worldwide popularity as an alternative energy source due to its renewable, non-toxic, biodegradable and non-flammable properties. It also has low emission profiles and is environmentally beneficial. Biodiesel can be used either in pure form or blended with conventional petrodiesel in automobiles without any major engine modifications. Various non-edible and edible oils can be used for the preparation of biodiesel. With no competition with food uses, the use of non-edible oils as alternative source for engine fuel will be important. Among the non-edible oils, such as Pongamia, Argemone and Castor, Jatropha curcas has tremendous potential for biodiesel production. J. curcas, growing mainly in tropical and sub-tropical climates across the developing world, is a multipurpose species with many attributes and considerable potentials. In this article, we review the oil extraction and characterization, the role of different catalysts on transesterification, the current state-of-the-art in biodiesel production, the process control and future potential improvement of biodiesel production from J. curcas.

Propolis is a resinous substance collected by stingless bee or honey bee from various plant sources. The substance is known to contain beneficial properties for human. The geographical origin of propolis determines its biological properties. In this study, propolis were collected from five regions of Indonesia with the objective of determining the yield, their total flavonoid content, their capacity to induce apoptosis, and their toxicity to the Michigan Cancer Foundation-7 (MCF-7) cell line. The inhibition of antioxidant 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), the induction of apoptosis to Saccharomyces cerevisiae and the anticytotoxic ability were determined. Propolis from Pekanbaru region had higher yield than other regions with value of 19.97%; propolis from Kendal had higher quantity with value of 46.60%, total flavonoid content; propolis from Pandeglang was higher in DPPH oxidation capacity with value of 68.94 μg.ml -1 ; propolis from Kendal, expressed petite cell induction in S. cerevisiae cells with value of 81.44%, and the anticytotoxic to MCF-7 breast cancer cell line were best observed in propolis from Makassar region with a value of 47.71% life cells. All of the propolis extracted from the stingless bee hive Trigona spp from five regions in Indonesia contained flavonoids.

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Pangandaran district is a district that has the third largest coconut tree plantation area in West Java, and coconut is made as one of the potential regional prime commodities. This research objective was to discover four aspects on coconut agroindustry, namely the availability of raw material, distribution, product's prospective, and economic empowerment of society. The method used in this research was descriptive method, while survey and questionnaire spreading were used. To find out the potential availability of raw materials, secondary data were used,which were proceeded with forecasting moving average method. Spreading of coconut agroindustry was mapped for several sub-districts, according to primary or secondary data. Determination of prospective product were done by Technique for Order Performance of Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). Potential of economic empowerment was obtained by analysis of profit cost ratio. Refer to the research results, coconut agroindustry had big potential in empowerment of the social economy. This potency can be seen by the amount of availability and certainty of coconut as raw material, the quality of the resulting coconut, availability of human resources, breadth of market section, infrastructure and means of transportation, supporting by local people, then government policy that supporting in growth and development of coconut agroindustry. The coconut agroindustry was spread in a whole sub-disctrict, and the most of it was located in Cimerak Sub-District. The most prospective product was coconut sugar, that is one of products that have big potential and profitable for empowerment of the social economy.

Active compounds of temulawak often have some disadvantages such as barely dissolve in water, unstable in alkaline and acidic conditions, that need to be overcome by coating with the starch matrix. Starch nanoparticles precipitated with alcohol can serve as coating material because it has a helical hole and the porous structure. The research objective was to determine the effect of starch nanoparticles coating materials on the characteristics of temulawak microcapsule. The treatments tested included types of coating/starch matrix resulted from two different preparations of arrowroot starch nanoparticles namely by butanol and ethanol precipitation with two degrees of hydrolysis. The parameters observed consist of yield, encapsulation efficiency (EE), drug loading (DL), morphology (SEM and TEM), particle size distribution and polydispersity index (PDI), FTIR, and antioxidant activity. The results showed that the yield of microcapsules ranged from 42.91 to 58.31%, with EE from 48.69 to 69.59% and DL from 19.02 to 28.96%. Microcapsule size ranged from micro to nano size having 200 nm in average with rounded shape, and polydispersity index from 0.69 to 0.94. The antioxidant activity showed that microcapsule coated with butanol precipitation starch matrix was higher than that of ethanol precipitation. The FTIR analysis showed a binding of the active ingredient (curcumin) in the matrix as seen with the new absorption peak at a wavelength of 1510 cm−1 as well as two new peaks at 1750 cm−1 and 3730 cm−1.

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