The porous micro-/nanostructured Co3O4 microellipsoids are successfully fabricated through a urea assisted solvothermal route using polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) as the capping reagent followed by thermal treatment in air. The porous characterization has been performed to confirm that porous Co3O4 micro-/nanostructures are composed of numerous primary nanocrystallines. The specific surface area and pore size of the Co3O4 microellipsoids are around similar to 24.2 m(2) g(-1) and 13.5 nm, respectively. The obtained porous Co3O4 microellipsoids demonstrate the high initial discharge capacity of similar to 1314 mAh g(-1) with a Columbic efficiency of 79.2% at a current density of 50 mA g(-1) in the potential range of 0.01-3.0 V. More impressively, a significantly improved reversible capacity of similar to 1192 mAh g(-1) is retained at 100 mAg(-1) after 50 discharge-charge cycles. Excellent rate capabilities (similar to 920 mAh g(-1) at 200 mA g(-1) and similar to 630 mAh g(-1) at 600 mAg(-1)) are observed for the porous microellipsoid-like structure. It should be noted that the unique porous micro-/nanostructured microellipsoids play an important role in the enhanced electrochemical lithium storage performance. Therefore, the porous micro-/nanostructured Co3O4 microellipsoids should be suitable as an anode material for lithium ion batteries. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.