In this work, a simple and effective method is developed to synthesize zinc ferrite nanoparticles (ZnFe2O4) in a redox coprecipitation reaction system containing only ferrous and zinc salt followed by a solid-state reaction. On this foundation, ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles with reduced size are further immobilized by reduced graphene oxide (RGO) to engineer a ZnFe2O4/RGO composite by simply introducing graphene oxide (GO) in the above reaction system. The ZnFe2O4/RGO composite electrode exhibits attractive lithium-ion storage capability with a reversible capacity of about 760 mAh.g(-1) for 200 charge/discharge cycles and 603 mAh.g(-1) for 700 cycles under a current rate of 1.0 A.g(-1). The robust and porous RGO supporting framework, well immobilized ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles with controlled size and pseudocapacitive behavior of the composite jointly ensure the good battery performance. Moreover, the synthetic route for ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles and ZnFe2O4/RGO composite is simple and economic, which may be further developed for massive production and applied in other fields. (C) 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.