Porous carbon derived from rice husk has been prepared and subsequently be used as carbon support to in situ fabricate hierarchical MoS2 microspheres. The X-ray powder diffraction characterization indicates that the graphite structure exists in the obtained rice husk carbon which is beneficial for the enhancement of the charge transfer speed. MoS2 microspheres on the surface of rice husk carbon present hierarchical structure with nanosheet subunit, and exhibits looser morphology than the individual MoS2 due to the lattice shrinkage. Based on the synergistic effect of MoS2 and the rice husk carbon, MoS2@RHC composite displays excellent lithium storage performance. The charge-transfer resistance of the MoS2@RHC composite is great lower than that of the individual materials. This result leads to the superior cycling stability and rate capability based on the favorable interface kinetics with faster lithium ion diffusion. The lithium charge-discharge mechanism of the composite is also further investigated. The log (peak current) versus log (scan rate) plot reveals that the current is predominantly controlled by the diffusion kinetics during the lithiation and delithiation process. (C) 2019 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.