A new type of carbon-nitrogen-metal catalyst, PANI-Fe-C, was synthesized by calcination process. According to the results of FT-IR and XPS analysis, polyaniline chain was broken by calcination. Small nitrogen-contained molecular fragments were gasified during calcination process, while the remaining nitrogen atoms were enchased in the new produced multiple carbon rings by C-N and C=N bonds and performed as the catalytic active sites and the covalent centers for soluble iron components. Calculated from the polarization curves, a maximum power density of 10.17 W/m(3) for the MFC with the synthetic catalyst was obtained, which was slightly higher than the MFC with Pt/C catalyst of 9.56 W/m(3). All the results obtained in this paper proved that the newly synthetic nitrogen-carbon-metal catalyst would be a potential alternative to the expensive Pt/C catalyst in the field of MFC. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.