Herein, an investigation of the impact of the dopant and carbon content in iron-doped zinc oxide/carbon composites is presented. For this purpose, a comprehensive morphological, structural, and electrochemical characterization of a series of different compounds is reported, including techniques like X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), specific surface area using the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) algorithm, pycnometry, small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), cyclic voltammetry (CV), and galvanostatic cycling. The obtained results reveal an impact of the iron-dopant content on the crystallite and particle size as well as the detailed de-/lithiation mechanism. The effect on the cycling stability, however, appears to be rather minor. The carbon coating content, on the contrary, has a significant influence on the cycling stability and rate capability. According to these results, a carbon content of about 10 wt% is sufficient to achieve stable cycling at lower current densities, while a carbon content of 15-20 wt% allows for specific capacities of 425-500 mAh g(-1), when applying a specific current of 1 A g(-1), for instance. (C) The Author(s) 2016. Published by ECS. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 License (CC BY-NC-ND, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is not changed in any way and is properly cited. For permission for commercial reuse, please email: [email protected]. All rights reserved.