Magnesium-aluminum hydrotalcite with a Mg/Al molar ratio of 4 was synthesized by a coprecipitation method. Thermally-decomposed and rehydrated Mg-Al hydrotalcites were used to catalyze the transesterification of tributyrin, a model triglyceride, with methanol (tributyrin: methanol molar ratio 1:30) at 333 K to produce methyl butyrate, monobutyrin, dibutyrin, and glycerol. The pseudo first order rate constants of a three step reaction sequence for tributyrin transesterification were determined by fitting a kinetic model to the experimental data. Although decomposed and rehydrated Mg-Al hydrotalcite was one order of magnitude more active than decomposed Mg-Al hydrotalcite based on surface area measured by N-2 adsorption, the activity correlated well to the CO2 adsorption capacity. The most active rehydrated samples also deactivated faster, presumably because butyric acid produced by hydrolysis of ester with adsorbed water reacted with the base sites. The area] rate and CO2 adsorption capacity of decomposed-rehydrated Mg-Al hydrotalcite decreased as the interlayer water was removed by heating. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.