Chinese scientists from the Department of Chemistry, Hua Zhong Agriculture University, the Key Laboratory of Catalysis and Materials Science of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, and the HuBei Province South-Central University for Nationalities (all in Wuhan, China), report the use of carbonized shrimp shells as catalysts for the transesterification process for biodiesel production. Transesterification is the reaction between a plant oil and methanol to produce a mixture of methyl esters (also known as "biodiesel"). In their study, rapeseed oil was the biodiesel feedstock. The production of the catalyst initially involves the carbonization of the shrimp shells by thermal treatment in the absence of air. The charcoal-like residue is then activated by addition of a chemical (potassium fluoride) to increase the porous structure of the residues. Results showed that the optimum production conditions of the carbonized shrimp shell catalyst were: a carbonization temperature of 450°C, and activation by 25 weight percent of potassium fluoride at 250°C. Oil to biodiesel conversion efficiency using the catalyst was about 89.1% under the following conditions: temperature of 65°C, 2.5 wt % catalyst dose, a methanol/rapeseed oil molar ratio of 9:1, and a reaction time of 3 h. Complete details of the study are published in the ACS (American Chemical Society) journal, Energy and Fuels..