The transesterification of vegetable oils with methanol as well as the
main uses of the fatty acid methyl esters are reviewed. The general a
spects of this process and the applicability of different types of cat
alysts (acids, alkaline metal hydroxides, alkoxides and carbonates, en
zymes and non-ionic bases, such as amines, amidines, guanidines and tr
iamino(imino)phosphoranes) are described. Special attention is given t
o guanidines, which can be easily heterogenized on organic polymers. H
owever, the anchored catalysts show leaching problems. New strategies
to obtain non-leaching guanidine-containing catalysts are proposed. Fi
nally, several applications of fatty acid esters, obtained by transest
erification of vegetable oils, are described.