The invention particularly relates to a metal oxide composite material and a preparation method thereof and application of a metal oxide composite material. The composite material is cubic particles with the granularity of 5-50 [mu]m, and is formed by stacking metal oxide nano sheets with the granularity of 50-100nm. The metal oxide consists of zinc oxide and oxides of metals M1 and M2, wherein the mass percentage of the zinc oxide is 80-95%, the mass percentage of the oxide of the metal M1 is 5-10%, and the mass percentage of the oxide of the metal M2 is 1-5%. The preparation method comprisesthe following steps of: preparing a precursor by adopting a hydrothermal method; and oxidizing the precursor by heat treatment to finally obtain a target material. The material has moderate granularity and no agglomeration phenomenon, and shows excellent cycle efficiency and cycle stability when being used as a cathode material of an alkaline zinc secondary battery. The process is simple, and theobtained product has an excellent performance and is beneficial to the marketization of the zinc secondary battery.