Tungsten Trioxide (WO3), as an N-type semiconductor material with good mechanical stability, photoelectric effect and electrochromic characteristics, is favored in the field of energy storage and used by researchers at home and abroad to replace cobalt in lithium-ion batteries.
With the gradual decline of subsidies for new energy vehicles and the raid on Covid-19 in 2019, the shortage of cobalt resources and high costs have become increasingly prominent. Therefore, getting rid of dependence on cobalt has become an important direction for many power battery companies to care about and explore. In February 2020, Tesla put forward the concept of a cobalt-free battery, which triggered a hot discussion on cobalt substitute materials, among which Tungsten Trioxide was one of them.
Tungsten Trioxide can not only be used as a modifier for positive electrode materials of cobalt-free batteries, but can also be used for producing high-performance negative electrode materials. As for cathode materials, Tungsten Trioxide is uneasy to react with electrolyte, which can effectively reduce the possibility of rapid increase of partial pressure and temperature in the battery, and improve the specific capacity and thermal stability of the product. In the aspect of cathode materials, the use of Tungsten Trioxide powder can obviously improve the rate performance and lithium storage kinetics performance of the cathode materials produced. In addition, compared with cobalt, Tungsten Trioxide has some advantages in terms of yield and cost. China is the country with the largest reserves of tungsten, and it also has more than half of the global battery capacity and new energy vehicle market. It is believed that Tungsten Trioxide could provide great advantages in the production of cobalt-free batteries in the future.
Researchers have found that Tungsten Trioxide powder can participate in the preparation of cathode materials and has excellent performance in improving the capacity and charge-discharge rate of cobalt-free batteries, while the composite material that can improve the comprehensive performance of electrochemical lithium storage is the material of Tungsten Trioxide and graphene.
