The most promising non-precious metal oxygen reduction catalysts are M-Nx/C (M = Fe and/or Co) materials. Moreover, N-containing precursor is one of the important factors that affect oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity of M-Nx/C materials. In this paper, we want to study nitrogen precursor effects on ORR activity of Co-Nx/C catalysts by varying N content and N/C ratio of the nitrogen precursor. In this regard, three Co-Nx/C catalysts were synthesized using a solvent-milling method followed by high temperature treatment. The results showed that the increase in N content and N/C ratio did not necessarily cause the improvement of ORR activity of the Co-Nx/C catalyst. The most active catalyst, Co-HQ/C-800 (heat treatment of carbon supported Co-HQ complex at 800 degrees C for 2 h), was obtained using 8-hydroxyquinoline (8-HQ) as the nitrogen precursor. XPS analysis demonstrated that more graphitic N and Co-Nx active sites were responsible for better ORR activity of the Co-HQ/C-800 catalyst. The electrochemical property of the three Co-Nx/C catalysts was evaluated by linear sweep voltammetry (LSV), chronoamperometric measurements, accelerated durability tests (ADT) and H-2/O-2 alkaline fuel cell (AFC) tests. Copyright (C) 2014, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.