**5. Conclusions**

Macauba is an emerging species with scientific interest concerning the distribution and genetic diversity of the species, plant development, oil production, crop management, harvest techniques and fruit treatment, extraction, processing, and modification of oils to obtain more plastic lipid bases for various applications. The high productivity of the macauba and the resilience of the crop along with the need to search for vegetable oils with potential use as alternative raw materials for biofuel production have encouraged further studies on this species. Although it is a very promising plant for the sustainable production of vegetable oil on a large scale, there are still scientific and technological challenges. The main challenges include

*Macauba (*Acrocomia aculeata*): Biology, Oil Processing, and Technological Potential DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105540*

obtaining commercial varieties, developing sustainable cultivation models, efficient fruit processing techniques, standardized refining protocols, and effective analytical techniques for oil characterization. This chapter summarizes the recent studies on *A. aculeata* biology, oil processing, and technological applications. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive review of all the processing steps of *A. aculeata* oils (pulp and kernel) from fruit to refined oils, and the characterization of by-products of the refining distillate, thus addressing the entire macauba oil production chain.
