RESEARCH ARTICLE Scanning electron microscopy leads to identification of novel nonedible oil seeds as energy crops Mamoona Munir 1 | Mushtaq Ahmad 1 | Amir Waseem 2 | Muhammad Zafar 1 | Muhammad Saeed 2 | Aneela Wakeel 3 | Moona Nazish 1 | Shazia Sultana 1 1 Biodiesel Lab, Department of Plant Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan 2 Analytical Lab, Department of Chemistry, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan 3 Department of Metallurgy and Material Engineering, University of Engineering & Technology, Taxila, Pakistan Correspondence Mushtaq Ahmad, Biodiesel Lab, Department of Plant Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, 45320 Islamabad, Pakistan. Email: mushtaqflora@hotmail.com Muhammad Zafar, Biodiesel Lab, Department of Plant Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, 45320 Islamabad, Pakistan. Email: zafar@qau.edu.pk Review Editor: Mingying Yang Abstract Currently, exploration of alternative energy resources is hotly debated among the scientific community owing to rising energy crises and environmental issues. Biodiesel, as renewable energy source proves to be a better option and substitute to petro diesel. In this regard, nonedible seeds could be a better feedstock for synthesizing biodiesel due to their cost effectiveness and environmental friendly attributes. The present study, there- fore, deals with the exploration and identification of micromorphologic features among eight novel nonedible oil yielding seeds via scanning electron microscopy (SEM) as poten- tial feedstock for biodiesel industry. Light microscopic studies revealed that seeds size vary from 0.1–2.9 cm in length to 0.1–3 cm in width. Moreover, a great variation in seed color from black, green, and different shades of brown was also observed. Seeds ultra- structure examination by SEM exhibit great variation in seed shape, size, color, sculptur- ing and periclinal wall shape and arrangement and so on. All the understudy seeds vary from rounded, irregular, subspherical, ellipsoidal, reniform, flattened, polygonal, ovate, pyriform, oblong, and globose shape. Seeds wall structure exhibits great variation from entire, angular, straight, irregular, polygonal, smooth, and elongated. The periclinal wall pattern exhibits variation from flat to slightly concave-convex with straight, angular, undulate, or dentate seeds margin. Among the studied species only Argemone ochroleuca Linn. (Papaveraceae) possess micropylar peak, ridged raphe, and basal helium. The obtained results from the present study would therefore, suggest that SEM could be a useful tool in refreshing the veiled micromorphological features among different oil yield- ing seeds which in turn helps the researchers for their correct identification, exploration, authentication, and seeds classification in future. KEYWORDS energy crises, identification, nonedible oil yielding seeds, scanning electron microscopy, seed micromorphology 1 | INTRODUCTION Energy is vital in our lives to streamline transportation, industrial, and power generation sectors. Globally, energy demand has been satisfied by the fossil fuel reservoirs and its urgency seems to increase steadily due to significant competences provided by the unique and renewable technologies followed by the implementation of meticulous energy plans and environmental regulations (Milano et al., 2018). This sce- nario had raised international awareness of energy crises due to the dramatic shift in fuel prices along with the dwindling of fossil fuel Received: 11 December 2018 Revised: 22 January 2019 Accepted: 20 February 2019 DOI: 10.1002/jemt.23265 Microsc Res Tech. 2019;1–9. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jemt © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 1