Reduction of WO3 to W-metal by mechanochemical reaction

A new non-thermal route for reduction of tungsten oxide (WO3) to metallic tungsten (W) by a milling operation in ammonia (NH3) gas atmosphere in the presence of lithium nitride (Li3N) is proposed in this paper. A sample of WO3 was milled with Li3N under ammonia gas atmosphere in a planetary ball mill with ZrO2 balls to induce mechanochemical (MC) reaction between the starting samples. Characterization of milled product by X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis confirms that W-metal could be obtained by the new mechanochemical (MC) process within 1 h.