Microalgal biomass is a potential feedstock for biofuel production because of its oleaginous nature and fast growth rate. Furthermore, its cultivation does not compete with crop producing land and thereby eliminating food vs. fuel dilemma. This study describes a low-cost nutrient mediated cultivation method for growing lipid enriched algal biomass from Scenedesmus quadricauda in BG11 media in a raceway pond. A renewable heterogeneous catalyst is synthesized using calcium oxide obtained from calcination of waste egg shells and modified using cobalt nitrate hexahydrate by co-precipitation method. The synthesized catalyst is characterized by XRD, SEM, EDX, FTIR, TEM techniques. Lipid extracted from the biomass is converted to biodiesel using the synthesized catalyst. The formation of biodiesel is confirmed using 1H NMR, 13C NMR and GC-MS techniques. The result demonstrated that the CaO–Co catalyst has very high catalytic activity for biodiesel production. The integrated process described in this study has potential for producing environmentally benign fuels and a heterogeneous catalyst from renewable sources. •The microalgae Scenedesmus quadriacuda is a good candidate for biofuel production.•KNO3 helps in lipid enhancement.•The catalyst CaO-Co is renewable in nature.•The algal biodiesel yield is 98%.