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A facile sol-gel method is used to fabricate anatase TiO 2 /amorphous carbon (a-TiO 2 /C) and pure a-TiO 2 nanoparticles as anode materials in lithium-ion battery. In the a-TiO 2 /C hybrid, a-TiO 2 is generated along with synthesis of amorphous carbon. Thus, a-TiO 2 is uniformly embedded into amorphous carbon matrix, which showing a flake structure. The flakes are composed of a number of irregularly sized a-TiO 2 /C nanoparticles. Moreover, the flakes have porous channels. This designed structure suppresses the growth of a-TiO 2 nanoparticles and accelerates the diffusion of lithium ions. Therefore, the hybrid materials exhibit an excellent rate and stability performance compared to pure a-TiO 2 in electrochemical testing. The a-TiO 2 /C anode has discharge capacities of 293 mAh g−1 at 0.05 A g−1 and 172.6 mAh g−1 at 0.5 A g−1. Additionally, the a-TiO 2 /C anode retains a long cycling performance of 224.4 mAh g−1 at 0.2 A g−1 over 400 cycles with a capacity retention rate of 86.9%. An average capacity fading loss is 0.03275% per cycle, which is lower than 0.1335% of a-TiO 2 anode per cycle (initial discharge capacity is 290.5 mAh g−1 and final discharge capacity is 135.4 mAh g−1). The results reveal that compounding of amorphous carbon effectively improves the electrochemical performance of a-TiO 2. • The a-TiO 2 /amorphous carbon porous flakes based nanoparticles are produced by a facile process. • Ethylene glycol is both carbon source and solvent without any additional carbon source. • a-TiO 2 is uniformly embeds into carbon matrix. • An average capacity decay is 0.03275% per cycle at 0.2 A/g after 400 cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]