Separators are an essential part of current lithium-ion batteries. Vanessa Wood and co-workers review the properties of separators, discuss their relationship with battery performance and survey the techniques for characterizing separators.
Development of an Advanced Microporous Separator for Lithium Ion Batteries Used in Vehicle Applications (United States Advanced Battery Consortium, 2018). Xu, H., Zhu, M., Marcicki, J. & Yang, X. G. Mechanical modeling of battery separator based on microstructure image analysis and stochastic characterization. J. Power Sources 345, 137–145 (2017).
The literature on lithium metal battery separators reveals a significant evolution in design and materials over time . Initially, separators were basic polymer films designed for lithium-ion batteries, focusing primarily on preventing short-circuits and allowing ionic conductivity [, , ].
Recent progress in advanced separators is aimed to achieve the high stable and performance lithium-sulfur battery by implying some modified functional separators in lithium-sulfur battery. Fig. S2 shows the schematic design of lithium-sulfur battery with modified separators.
A promising approach is to advance the development of functional separators to improve the overall electrochemical performance of Li–S batteries. [40 - 43] The conventional separators are typically composed of polymer porous membranes featuring large macropores.
To improve the performance and durability of Li-ion and Li–S batteries, development of advanced separators is required. In this review, we summarize recent progress on the fabrication and application of novel separators, including the functionalized polyolefin separator, polymeric separator, and ceramic separator, for Li-ion and Li–S batteries.