Synthesis of FAMEs can be catalyzed by either base or acid. The base — catalyzed reaction is faster but can also generate soaps [4]. The sulfuric acid-catalyzed reaction, while slower, is also better at esterifying free fatty acids by dehydration [27]. Heat can speed up the acid-catalyzed reaction but there is a tradeoff between speed and the cost of heating. The previous results showed that 5% sulfuric acid in methanol could both elute algae from the resin and convert lipids to FAME. To test how well a base-cat­alyzed transesterification reagent would work, algae bound to Amberlite was eluted with either potassium hydroxide/methanol or sodium methox — ide/methanol. We found that FAME yields from the sodium hydroxide/ methanol reaction were undetectable and yields from the sodium methox — ide/methanol reagent were 4% lower than using the sulfuric acid/metha — nol reagent. The reduced levels of FAME may be due to residual water, as shown by Griffiths [20], or to binding and depletion of the hydroxide or methoxide ions from solution by the anion exchange resin. For acid- catalyzed transesterification, we found that ethanol could be substituted for methanol with essentially identical results. Because of its low cost and wide availability, methanol is often used for biodiesel synthesis [4]. How­ever, ethanol cost may decrease in the future as advances in bioethanol productions lead to increases in supply.