In the present study, such carbohydrate-derived catalysts have been prepared from various carbohydrates such as D-glucose, sucrose, cellulose and starch. The catalytic and textural properties of the prepared catalysts have been investigated in detail and it was found that the starch-derived catalyst had the best catalytic performance. The carbohydrate-derived catalysts exhibited substantially higher catalytic activities for both esterification and transesterification compared to the two typical solid acid catalysts (sulphated zirconia and Niobic acid), and gave markedly enhanced yield of methyl esters in converting waste cooking oils containing 27.8 wt% high free fatty acids (FFAs) to biodiesel. In addition, under the optimized reaction conditions, the starch-derived catalyst retained a remarkably high proportion (about 93%) of its original catalytic activity even after 50 cycles of successive re-use and thus displayed very excellent operational stability. Our results clearly indicate that the carbohydrate-derived catalysts, especially the starch-derived catalyst, are highly effective, recyclable, eco-friendly and promising solid acid catalysts that are highly suited to the production of biodiesel from waste oils containing high FFAs. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.