Research Progress of Separator Materials for Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

Lithium-Sulfur (Li-S)batteries are considered to be one of the most promising new types of high performance batteries because of their high theoretical capacity and energy density,which have the advantages of rich raw materials,good environmental protection and low cost.Li-S batteries are mainly composed of the cathode material,anode material,electrolyte and separator.And separator is one of the important parts of Li-S batteries,whose performance has great effect on the overall performance of batteries.In this paper,the developments of high quality separator materials of Li-S batteries are reviewed,including polyolefin,polyethylene oxide (PEO), polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF),various blending polymer and nanofiber separators,and the development trends of separator materials for Li-S batteries are also prospected.Research results showed that the properties of Li-S batteries,including charge discharge capacity,cycle performance,ionic conductivity and coulomb efficiency could be improved and promoted by the preparation and modification of the separators.The separators prepared by electrospinning method were studied primarily as the Li-S battery separators because of the excellent pore structure.We believe that the nanofiber porous membranes will become a hotspot in the application and research of separator materials for lithium sulfur batteries because of their excellent pore structure and gelation characteristics.