Lithium-sulfur batteries have a high theoretical energy density of 2500 Wh/kg and are promising candidates for meeting future energy storage demands. However, dissolution of the intermediate polysulfide species into the electrolyte remains as a major challenge, causing fast capacity degradation in Li-S batteries. Many recent studies have reported various materials such as metal oxides and sulfides that interact strongly with polysulfide species and can alleviate the dissolution problem, though little work has focused on quantitative comparison of different materials under equivalent conditions. Here, we establish a standard procedure to quantitatively compare the polysulfide adsorption capability of candidate materials. We found that an order of magnitude of difference is evident between poor adsorption materials such as carbon black and strong adsorption materials such as V₂O₅ and MnO₂. We elucidate different adsorption mechanisms may be present and probe possible adsorption species. We expect our work will provide a useful strategy to screen for suitable candidate materials and valuable information for rational design of long cycle life Li-S batteries.

锂硫电池的理论能量密度很高，为2500 Wh / kg，并且有望满足未来的储能需求。然而，将中间多硫化物物质溶解到电解质中仍然是主要挑战，这导致Li-S电池的容量快速下降。最近的许多研究报道了各种材料，例如金属氧化物和硫化物，它们与多硫化物种类发生强烈相互作用，并可以缓解溶解问题，尽管很少有工作致力于在同等条件下对不同材料进行定量比较。在这里，我们建立了一个标准程序来定量比较候选材料的多硫化物吸附能力。₂ O ₅和MnO ₂。我们阐明了可能存在的不同吸附机理，并探讨了可能的吸附种类。我们希望我们的工作将为筛选合适的候选材料和有价值的信息提供有用的策略，以合理设计长寿命的Li-S电池。