For practical applications of microbial fuel cells (MFCs), 5H-dibenz [b,f] azepine-5-carboxamide (Carbamazepine, CBZ) was used as the organic precursor for the synthesis of catalysts composed of Fe-N-C complexes (named as Fe-CBZ-Cats) through a sacrificial support method. Characterizations by SEM, XPS and TEM-EDS elemental mapping show that the synthesized Fe-CBZ-Cats have porous structure and uniformly dispersed Fe/N/C complex centers which could play key roles in effective ORR. Linear scanning voltammetry (LSV) measurements show that the synthesized Fe-CBZ-Cats exhibits ORR activity comparable to commercial Pt/C catalysts under the same catalyst loading (2 mg cm(-2)). The maximum power density produced by cathode-limiting MFCs with Fe-CBZ-Cats air cathodes was 431 +/- 23 mu W cm(-2), higher than those in the control MFCs with Pt/C air cathodes (403 +/- 13 mu W cm(-2)) and activated carbon air cathodes (296 +/- 24 mu W cm(-2)). In addition, the toxicity tolerance of the synthesized Fe-CBZ-Cats is much higher than Pt/C. (C) 2020 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.