Abstract The environmentally friendly synthesis of highly active Fe‐N‐C electrocatalysts for proton‐exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) is desirable but remains challenging. A simple and scalable method is presented to fabricate Fe II ‐doped ZIF‐8, which can be further pyrolyzed into Fe‐N‐C with 3 wt % of Fe exclusively in Fe‐N 4 active moieties. Significantly, this Fe‐N‐C derived acidic PEMFC exhibits an unprecedented current density of 1.65 A cm −2 at 0.6 V and the highest power density of 1.14 W cm −2 compared with previously reported NPMCs. The excellent PEMFC performance can be attributed to the densely and atomically dispersed Fe‐N 4 active moieties on the small and uniform catalyst nanoparticles.

The Solid‐Phase Synthesis of an Fe‐N‐C Electrocatalyst for High‐Power Proton‐Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells