The production of biodiesel has rapid development in the recent years due to the benefits associated with its ability to minimize environmental pollution. Heterogeneous catalyst for production of biodiesel is a preferred route for its easier recovery and no demand for aqueous treatment. Transesterification of fatty acids into biodiesel using transition metal oxide gives higher conversion into their corresponding methyl esters in a short time. In the present work, manganese doped zinc oxide is used as a heterogeneous catalyst for the production of biodiesel from Mahua oil. The synthesized manganese doped zinc oxide nanocatalyst was characterized by XRD and SEM. The SEM and XRD results confirmed the hexagonal structure of the catalyst with the particle size of 24.18 nm. The 8% (w/v) catalyst concentration, 1:7% (v/v) of oil to methanol ratio, 50 min of reaction time and 50 degrees C of reaction temperature were found to be the optimum process condition for the maximum biodiesel yield of 97%. The presence of methyl esters in biodiesel was confirmed by FT-IR and GC-MS analysis. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.