In this work ZrS3 has been synthesized by solid state reaction in a sealed quartz tube and investigated as a candidate cathode material in Li thermal batteries. The structure of ZrS3 before and after cell testing has been studied using powder X-ray diffraction. A new spinel related material, LiZr2S4, has been identified as the product of the electrochemical process, which can be indexed to a = 10.452(8) angstrom cubic unit cell. The electrochemical properties of the batteries were investigated at 500 degrees C against Li13Si4 by galvanostatic discharge and galvanostatic intermittent titration technique (GITT). In a thermal Li cell at 500 degrees C a single voltage plateau of 1.70 V at a current density of 11 mA/cm(2) was achieved with capacity of 357 mA h g(-1). Therefore ZrS3 material has some promise as a cathode for Li thermal batteries. (C) The Author(s) 2016. Published by ECS. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (CC BY, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse of the work in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. All rights reserved.