Polyolefin nonwoven fabrics are widely used as nickel metal hydride (Ni-MH) battery separators. They are usually post-treated to obtain better electrolyte absorption and retention. However, these treatments, such as sulfonation, grafting of acrylic acid, are not only increasing the cost of the separators, but also not eco-friendly. In the paper, a nonwoven composite separator is prepared by hydroentangling and hot-pressing. It is composited with two layers of polypropylene staple fibers sandwiched with one layer of hydrophilic polypropylene melt-blown nonwoven, forming a compact structure that the coarse fibers and melt-blown fibers entangled each other. After hot-pressing, the average pore size of the composite nonwoven separator is only 8.22um，in addition, it has better chemical stability and electrolyte absorption in comparison with the commercial sulfonation separator. The cell performance of Ni-MH batteries packed with the composite separators is studied as well. It is found that the battery with the composite nonwoven separator exhibits good cell performance.