Tremendous efforts have been made toward the development of lithium–sulfur (Li–S) batteries as one of the most reasonable solutions to the rapidly increasing demand for portable electronic devices and electric vehicles, owing to their high cost-efficiency and theoretical energy density. However, the shuttle effect caused by soluble polysulfides is generally considered to be an insurmountable challenge, which can significantly reduce the battery lifecycle and sulfur utilization. Here, we report a lignin nanoparticle-coated Celgard (LC) separator to alleviate this problem. The LC separator enables abundant electron-donating groups and is expected to induce chemical binding of polysulfides to hinder the shuttle effect. When a sulfur-containing commercially available acetylene black (approximately 73.8 wt% sulfur content) was used as the cathode without modification, the Li–S battery with the LC separator presented much enhanced cycling stability over that with the Celgard separator for over 500 cycles at a current density of 1 C. The strategy demonstrated in this study is expected to provide more possibilities for the utilization of low-cost biomass-derived nanomaterials as separators for high-performance Li–S batteries.

Hydrogen-bonding (HB) induced by water solvation shell is vital in the chemical and biological systems. Herein, HBs related to the binding behavior of protonic ionic liquids (PIL) with water molecules...

CO2 has been regarded as one of the most promising blowing agents for polystyrene (PS) foam due to its non-flammability, low price, nontoxicity, and eco-friendliness. However, the low solubility and fast diffusivity of CO2 in PS hinder its potential applications. In this study, an attapulgite (ATP)/polypyrrole (PPy) nanocomposite was developed using the in situ polymerization method to generate the hierarchical cell texture for the PS foam based on the supercritical CO2 foaming. The results demonstrated that the nanocomposite could act as an efficient CO2 capturer enabling the random release of it during the foaming process. In contrast to the pure PS foam, the ATP/PPy nanocomposite reinforced PS foam is endowed with high cell density (up to 1.9 × 106) and similar thermal conductivity as the neat PS foam, as well as high compression modulus. Therefore, the in situ polymerized ATP/PPy nanocomposite makes supercritical CO2 foaming desired candidate to replace the widely used fluorocarbons and chlorofluorocarbons as PS blowing agents.