In this study, biodiesel was prepared from chicken fat via a transesterification reaction using Mussel shells as a catalyst. Pretreatment of chicken fat was carried out using non‐catalytic esterification to reduce the free fatty acid content from 36.28 to 0.96 mg KOH/g oil using ethanol/ fat mole ratio equal to 115:1. In the transesterification reaction, the studied variables were methanol: oil mole ratio in the range of (6:1 ‐ 30:1), catalyst loading in the range of (9‐15) wt%, reaction temperature (55‐75 °C), and reaction time (1‐7) h. The heterogeneous alkaline catalyst was greenly synthesized from waste mussel shells throughout a calcination process at different calcination times of (1‐5) h and temperatures of (700‐900) °C. The catalyst was characterized using BET, SEM, EDX, XRD, and FTIR. It was found that the optimum calcination conditions were 900 °C and 3h, which resulted in a specific surface area of 10.5 m2/g and a pore volume of 0.0033 cm3/g. The optimum values obtained in the transesterification reaction were 21:1 methanol: oil molar ratio, 12 wt% catalyst loading, 5 h reaction time, and 63°C reaction temperature, which gave 96.2% methyl esters content, confirming the high potential of waste mussel shells to be employed as a catalyst in the production of renewable biodiesel.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.