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.