Toshiba Has Developed Ultra-high-speed Lithium Batteries with Violet Tungsten Oxide As the Negative Electrode

At the recently concluded Yokohama Science and Technology Exhibition 2018, Toshiba Material exhibited a lithium-ion battery with ultrafast charging using purple tungsten oxide as anode material. These batteries are widely used in automobiles, mini/light hybrid trains, elevators, UPS and high current power supply systems. As a pioneer in the field of lithium-ion battery technology, once the battery is officially commercialized, it will be possible to further expand the demand market for tungsten oxide.

It is known that the tungsten oxide powder developed by Toshiba Material is used as the electrode material of new battery equipment, because tungsten oxide is helpful for electronic conductivity and lithium ion diffusion, and realizes ultra-fast charging and discharging. This material can be used to construct high power density battery devices to achieve smaller and lighter devices.

More specifically, Toshiba has developed a powder material called WO_2.72, which is also called Violet Tungsten Oxide by our industry. Purple tungsten oxide is a kind of tungsten oxide. Its appearance is purple fine crystalline powder. It is a tungsten oxide product developed in recent years in China. Its phase composition is W₁₈O₄₉. Because of its largest mesoporous volume, smallest microporous volume, narrowest pore size distribution, smallest fractal dimension, largest average pore size and ratio table. Area is the preferred material for preparing ultrafine tungsten powder or nano tungsten powder, photocatalytic material, petroleum catalyst and microelectronic integrated circuit board.

The preparation technology of purple tungsten oxide mainly includes APT wet hydrogen direct reduction method, hydrogen tungstate reduction method, APT ammonia light reduction method, etc. But Toshiba did not introduce their purple tungsten oxide production process. According to the company's official website of Toshiba Materials, purple tungsten oxide has very high chemical activity, which can enhance electronic conductivity. Because of its low internal resistance and excellent Li ion diffusion, high current charging and discharging can be realized by using purple tungsten oxide as the negative electrode of the battery. Especially at low temperature, the discharge characteristics are excellent, and even at - 40 ℃, the discharge rate characteristics of double-layer capacitors (EDLC) are equal to or higher than that of double-layer capacitors (EDLC). Previously, the rate characteristics of Li-ion secondary batteries and Li-ion capacitors at low temperatures have been an unsolved issue.

The characteristic of the battery is that the power density and energy density can be increased to 2 or 3 times of the double-layer capacitor. Compared with lithium ion capacitors designed to improve the energy density of EDLC, the energy density has also been improved. In the field of capacitors, Li-ion secondary batteries are not suitable for high output applications because of their insufficient output power and difficulty in development. The development of Li-ion secondary batteries will make it possible to use batteries for high output power applications.

As a leading technology company in the lithium batteries industry, Toshiba hopes to supply its newly developed sample batteries as battery materials to other battery manufacturers after exhibiting them at the exhibition. The commercial potential of this new product is enormous. If promoted, tungsten materials will no longer be just bystanders in the field of lithium batteries manufacturing.

• < Prev
• Next >