Lithium-sulfur batteries (LSBs) are among the most promising next-generation high energy density energy-storage systems. However, practical application has been hindered by fundamental problems, especially shuttling by the higher-order polysulfides (PSs) and slow redox kinetics. Herein, a novel electrolyte-based strategy is proposed by adding an ultrasmall amount of the low-cost and commercially available cationic antistatic agent octadecyl dimethyl hydroxyethyl quaternary ammonium nitrate (SN) into a routine ether electrolyte. Due to the strong cation–anion interaction and bridge-bonding with SN, rapid flocculation of the soluble polysulfide intermediates into solid-state polysulfide-SN sediments is found, which significantly inhibited the adverse shuttling effect. Moreover, a catalytic effect was also demonstrated for conversion of the polysulfide-SN intermediates, which enhanced the redox kinetics of Li–S batteries. Encouragingly, for cells with only 0.1 % added SN, an initial specific capacity of 783.6 mAh/g and a retained specific capacity of 565.7 mAh/g were found at 2C after 200 cycles, which corresponded to an ultralow capacity decay rate of only 0.014 % per cycle. This work may provide a simple and promising regulation strategy for preparing highly stable Li–S batteries.

锂硫电池（LSB）是最有前途的下一代高能量密度储能系统之一。然而，实际应用受到基本问题的阻碍，特别是高阶多硫化物（PS）的穿梭和缓慢的氧化还原动力学。在此，提出了一种新的基于电解质的策略，通过在常规醚电解质中添加超少量的低成本且市售的阳离子抗静电剂十八烷基二甲基羟乙基季铵硝酸盐（SN）。由于强烈的阳离子-阴离子相互作用以及与SN的桥键作用，可溶性多硫化物中间体快速絮凝成固态多硫化物-SN沉积物，从而显着抑制了不利的穿梭效应。此外，还证明了多硫化物-SN中间体的转化具有催化作用，从而增强了Li-S电池的氧化还原动力学。令人鼓舞的是，对于仅添加0.1％SN的电池，200次循环后在2C下发现初始比容量为783.6mAh/g，保留比容量为565.7mAh/g，这对应于仅0.014％的超低容量衰减率每个周期。这项工作可能为制备高度稳定的锂硫电池提供一种简单且有前景的调节策略。