Manganese oxide/carbon (MnOx/C) composite powders showing high performance as lithium-ion battery anode are synthesized by a facile co-precipitation process followed by thermal calcination between 400 degrees C and 700 degrees C in N-2, where the as-deposited MnO2 is reduced progressively to Mn3O4 and then to MnO. The role of conductive additive is investigated by adopting two carbon (C) materials of different dimensionalities, including carbon black (CB) nanoparticles and micron-sized graphitic flakes (GFs). For MnOx/CB composite, the cycling stability is remarkably enhanced with increasing calcination temperature, and this is due to increasing content of MnO, which exhibits superior redox reversibility than the oxides having higher Mn valences. Attempt to achieve single-phase MnO at higher temperature (700 degrees C), nevertheless, leads to deteriorated cycle performance because of the formation of large oxide particles having poor contact with CB. The use of the two-dimensional GFs creates the "balls-on-plate" oxide-C configuration. This configuration facilitates MnO formation at lower temperature and simultaneously enables retention of good oxide-C contact, leading to significantly enhanced cycling stability and rate performance. The MnOx/GF composites obtained by calcination at 500-600 degrees C show specific capacities of 550-600 mAh g(-1)-(oxide + C) with no capacity fading after 150 cycles. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.