Exploring the nonprecious metal catalysts for oxygen reduction with high activity and stability in acidic media is still a hard but extremely desirable work. Here, we proposed a bulk production of N, Fe-doped carbon nanospheres. The process involved a hydrothermal polymerization of m-phenylenediamine with FeCl3 as catalysts to catalyze the formation of poly(m-phenylenediamine) and annealing in NH3 atmosphere. The typical product has high surface area (1408 m(2) g(-1)), big total pore volume (0.90 cm(3) g(-1)) and a number of micropores. The typical product possesses the excellent activity for ORR, endurance and tolerance to methanol in acidic circumstance. This work has the merits of careful selection of poly(m-phenylenediamine) as precursor and NH3 etching to prepare the high-performance ORR catalysts in acidic electrolyte. The approach is simple, low-cost and readily scalable. (C) 2016 The Electrochemical Society. All rights reserved.