Rechargeable lithium/sulfur batteries have been proposed as the most promising high-performance batteries due to their high theoretical capacity and low cost. However, the poor electrical conductivity and structural stability of elemental sulfur and the dissolution of the polysulfides have confined the utilization of elemental sulfur and the cyclic retention of capacity. A novel in-situ route by transforming ZnO nanotemplates into sulfur nanoparticles during the preparation of carbon/sulfur composite is reported for synthesizing sulfur nanoparticles/disordered mesoporous carbon composite, which shows a high specific capacity of 660.8 mAh/g (composite) during the first cycle and an excellent cyclic retention of 87.9% after 100 cycles. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.