A highly amorphous GeOx powder has been synthesized by a soft chemical method. The method involves sodium germanium NaGe of Zintl phase was simply oxidized by isopropyl alcohol at room temperature and placed into distilled water. Amorphous GeOx powder serving as an anode for a Li-ion battery exhibited a high reversible capacity of 1268 mAh g(-1), high rate ability of 1035 mAh g(-1) (current rate of 6A g(-1)) and good cycle performance of 930 mAh g(-1) after 30 cycles. Thereby, our amorphous GeOx is to be potential anode material for Li-ion batteries. (C) The Author(s) 2016 Published by ECS. All rights reserved.