Transesterification of soybean oil to produce biodiesel was performed in a membrane reactor packed with shaped KF/Ca-Mg-Al hydrotalcite solid base. The microfiltration ceramic membrane (length: 20 cm, inner/outer diameter: 6/10 mm) was used to retain the oil during the transesterification reaction. High quality biodiesel was produced in the fixed bed membrane reactor by coupling heterogeneous alkali catalyzed transesterification and separation process. The response surface methodology (RSM) was employed to evaluate the effects of such factors as reaction temperature, catalyst amount, and circulation velocity on biodiesel production. 70 degrees C reaction temperature, 0.531 g/cm(3) catalyst amount and 3.16 mL/min circulation velocity was found to be the optimum condition, achieving a 0.1820 g/min biodiesel yielding rate during 150 min of circulation time.