Via the crosslinking of chitosan and sulfosuccinic acid (SSA), the acidic chitosan membrane (ACM) was prepared for biodiesel production from esterification of oleic acid and methanol. ATR-FTIR, TGA, XRD, SEM and EDX were applied to characterize the prepared ACM. The acidic site density and swelling capacity of the prepared ACM were investigated. The ACM possessed the 4.62 mmol/g of acidic site density, which was just a little less than 4.76 mmol/g of Amberlyst-15, meanwhile, ACM was proven to be much higher than Amberlyst-15 in swelling capacity. Under the same reaction, the 98.76% of conversion can be obtained while the Amberlyst-15 only reached 44.30%. The optimization of process variables was conducted by the combination of single factor experiment and Box-Behnken design (BBD) response surface methodology. The catalytic activity of ACM in different esterification of fatty acids and alcohols was also investigated. And the catalytic mechanism of esterification catalyzed by ACM was clarified. Based on the catalytic mechanism, the kinetic model was established to describe the esterification and obtain relevant kinetic parameters (E-a(+), E-a(-), A(+) and A(-)), meanwhile, the kinetic results were compared to the same reaction with different catalysts in detail. Besides, the reusability of the prepared ACM was studied. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.