Palladium nanoparticles immobilized on hollow carbon nanospheres introduced with both Fe and N species, denoted as Pd/Fe-N/C, have been designed as an efficient, heterogeneous, environmentally friendly catalyst for the semihydrogenation of phenylacetylene in liquid-phase under mild conditions (298 K, H-2 1 atm) without any additive. A high selectivity towards styrene (higher than 96.2%) was achieved with the total conversion of phenylacetylene within 80 min. The synergistic effect of doped N and Fe with Pd might be an important influence on improving the catalytic performance. Moreover, the Pd/Fe-N/C could be easily recycled by centrifugation and is reusable without obvious decrease of catalytic activity and selectivity. Therefore, the Pd/Fe-N/C nanocatalyst is highly attractive as selective hydrogenation heterogeneous catalyst for important industrial reactions. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.