The shuttling of soluble lithium polysulfides (LiPSs) intermediates bottlenecks practical uses of lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries. A commercial organometallic salt, nickel chloride dimethoxyethane adduct (NiDME), is introduced as the homogenous catalyst dissolved in the electrolyte to suppress the shuttle effect. A very small amount of catalyst (only 0.5 wt% additive relative to the electrolyte) brings the battery capacity a big rise from 408 to 784 mAh g⁻¹ over 500 cycles at 1 C. More promisingly, the required amount of electrolyte is greatly reduced, and the battery works well with a lean electrolyte (5 μL_{(electrolyte)}/mg_(sulfur)). The improved performance is attributed to the catalyst-accelerated LiPS conversion which is characterized by largely decreased activation energy (E_a) of the sulfur redox reaction, especially for Li₂S deposition, and much reduced accumulation of LiPSs intermediates. Specially, the NiDME additive captures LiPSs in the electrolyte, accelerates the redox reactions homogeneously and regulates a uniform and fast deposition of Li₂S, all these contributing to a perfect catalytic cycle with less LiPS shuttling. This work deepens our understanding on catalysis in accelerating sulfur redox conversion and indicates homogeneous catalysis as a simple yet fundamental solution to shuttle effect of LiPSs intermediates, which boosts practical Li-S batteries with less electrolyte needs and long working life.

可溶性多硫化锂（LiPSs）中间物的穿梭阻碍了锂硫（Li-S）电池的实际使用。引入商业有机金属盐，氯化镍二甲氧基乙烷加合物（NiDME）作为溶解在电解质中的均相催化剂，以抑制穿梭效应。极少量的催化剂（相对于电解质仅添加0.5 wt％的添加剂）可使电池容量在1 C的500个循环中从408 mAh g ^-1大幅增加至784 mAh g ^-1。更有希望的是，大大减少了所需的电解质量，并且该电池在稀薄电解质（5μL _{（电解质）} / mg _{（硫））下也能正常工作}）。性能的改善归因于催化剂加速的LiPS转化，其特征是硫氧化还原反应的活化能（E _a）大大降低，特别是对于Li ₂ S沉积，并且LiPS中间体的积聚大大减少。特别是，NiDME添加剂可捕获电解质中的LiPS，均匀地加速氧化还原反应，并调节Li ₂的均匀快速沉积。S，所有这些都有助于以更少的LiPS穿梭运动实现完美的催化循环。这项工作加深了我们对加速硫氧化还原转化中的催化作用的理解，并表明均相催化是解决LiPS中间体的穿梭效应的一种简单而基本的解决方案，从而提高了实用的Li-S电池的电解液需求，并延长了其使用寿命。