Anchoring and boosting: Ferrocene-based separators used to eliminate the polysulfide shuttle effect for Li–S batteries

The commercialization of Li–S batteries has been seriously hampered by the infamous “shuttle effect” of soluble lithium polysulfide intermediates (LiPSs, Li 2 S x , 4 ≤ x ≤ 8) and sluggish sulfur species conversion kinetics. In this work, vinyl ferrocene and styrene were copolymerized onto a polypropylene (PP) separator to prevent LiPS shuttling based on the electrostatic and orbital interactions between ferrocene and LiPSs, which increased the reactivity of LiPSs. Therefore, the “shuttle effect” can be successfully suppressed by a separator that combines thermodynamic anchoring and kinetic acceleration for LiPSs.