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Industrial crops are becoming increasingly relevant as raw materials for different goods and services. Although there are many oilseed crops with industrial purposes, data about their production in Chile are scarce because the definition used by the Office of Agricultural Studies and Policies places agro‐industrial and industrial crops in the same category. Here, we review the available information about 12 industrial oleaginous crops at different levels of development (four native, two adventive and six introduced crops). Most of these crops have been evaluated for or are related to biodiesel production, despite the lack of commercial biodiesel production in Chile. Jojoba was the first industrial oilseed produced commercially in Chile; however, every year its production area decreases, and currently it does not exceed 100 ha. Sunflower and rapeseed, which are the first generation of raw materials for biodiesel production, have been poorly studied in Chile despite the large number of studies available on them worldwide. Camelina and castor bean have recently been studied; the former is produced in the south, while the latter is produced on the coastline in northern Chile. Further research is needed to improve the production and adaptation of these oilseed crops to climatic conditions in Chile; moreover, a new market must be opened to produce and commercialize their oils. Oilseed species native to Chile have not been extensively studied, and they represent an interesting option suitable for production under Chilean climatic conditions; this is particularly true for guindilla and chañar, because both can grow under different abiotic stresses. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are a class of biodegradable biopolymers produced and accumulated by microorganisms. PHAs are recovered from microbial biomass through the stages of pretreatment, extraction and purification. An alternative recovery method is microwave‐assisted extraction (MAE), which involves the supply of energy through an electromagnetic field, generating high temperatures in reduced times. A study to evaluate the recovery of PHAs from mixed microbial cultures was conducted using MAE. This method was evaluated through a four‐factorial experimental design, with the efficiency as the evaluated response. PHAs were also recovered using conventional heat extraction as control. RESULTS: It was found that the highest efficiency achieved using MAE was 68 ± 1.2% (w/w), which was close to the 66 ± 5.3% (w/w) obtained using conventional heat extraction. The following combination of factors corresponded to the optimum conditions of experimental design: extraction time of 1 min, temperature of 130 °C, chloroform‐to‐methanol ratio of 1:1 and solvent‐to‐biomass ratio of 20 volumes. The efficiency increased substantially when the solvent‐to‐biomass ratio and chloroform‐to‐methanol ratio increased, although the temperature was the least significant factor. Functional groups, decomposition temperatures (263–309 °C) and melting point (158 °C) of MAE‐recovered PHAs were similar to those measured for commercial poly[(3‐hydroxybutyrate)‐co‐(3‐hydroxyvalerate)]. CONCLUSIONS: MAE is a never‐before‐reported useful method for recovering PHAs from mixed microbial cultures, which provides for a high extraction efficiency and quality of the recovered biopolymers. © 2021 Society of Chemical Industry (SCI). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frost is an important abiotic stress for plants and crops because of the economic losses that are incurred. Plants have two mechanisms for freezing protection: freezing avoidance and freezing tolerance. The former prevents extrinsic and/or intrinsic ice nucleation, while the latter provides plants with tools to survive apoplastic ice formation, by several coordinated physiological and biochemical features such as the increase in cryoprotectants (metabolites and proteins) which in general maintain cell membrane and cells macromolecules stability, cause a freezing point depression or decrease the cell osmolarity preventing the severe cell dehydration caused by apoplastic freezing. Many products against freezing have been developed, and there are at least 20 products on the international market. Ten products mainly avoid ice formation by forming semi‐permeable or permeable membranes that inhibit extrinsic ice nucleation over leaves, three products work for favouring tolerating ice formation in plants, and two use both mechanisms of action. Some kind of lipids, such as phospholipids and α‐tocopherol, effectively maintain the stability and integrity of cell membranes, while some osmolytes (mainly polyols) decrease the freezing point of water, both inside and outside the cell, but also can interact with the polar moieties of phospholipids stabilizing membranes. Despite this, more information on products for crop protection against freezing is required in order to determine their effectiveness. New formulations that protect crops against freezing must include ingredients that employ both mechanisms. The use of lipids is likely to continue while new alternatives that reduce ice formation are evaluated, among which antifreeze and cryoprotective proteins may offer attractive alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND Biodiesel production is not economically competitive with petroleum diesel particularly when using virgin and refined vegetable oils. Rich-in-oil miscella obtained from the extraction of soybean oil with ethanol may be a promising feedstock for taking off the refining process, simultaneously introducing an environmental friendly step by replacing hexane by ethanol as a renewable solvent in the oil extraction process. The aim of this study was to investigate the production of biodiesel from the oil-ethanol miscella by direct transesterification using Novozym®435 as catalyst and ethanol as acyl acceptor; simultaneously optimizing the process by response surface methodology and enzyme reuse. RESULTS The best experimental conditions indicated by the empirical model were temperature 40 °C, oil:ethanol molar ratio 1:4.5 and catalyst concentration 9.5% for 24 h, reaching 85.4% fatty acid ethylic esters ( FAEE) yield. Tert-butanol used as co-solvent increased the ethyl esters yield from 18%, keeping a high FAEE yield (over 70%) for more than 3 cycles of enzyme reuse. CONCLUSIONS Rich miscella has great potential as a low cost feedstock for biodiesel production when Novozym®435 is used as catalyst, simultaneously introducing an environmentally friendly step by using the renewable solvent ethanol in the extraction and transesterification. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]