AgW and AgWC electrical contacts are widely used as moving contacts in various circuit breakers because of their good electrical conductivity, electrothermal properties, and good electrical wear resistance.

However, with the continuous improvement of the requirements for the use of circuit breakers, especially in relatively harsh environments, such as offshore, high temperature and high humidity, higher requirements are placed on the corrosion resistance of electrical contact materials.

At present, the industry generally adopts the method of electroplating a silver layer or a gold layer after welding to isolate tungsten or tungsten carbide from the air. However, since the electroplated silver layer is burned off at the beginning of the use, the electroplated silver layer or the gold layer cannot solve the problem of corrosion of the electrical contact during long-term use.

In addition to the electroplated gold and silver layer, there are also methods of using silver graphite and silver graphene composite coatings, which can serve for a long time under multi-factor working conditions such as high temperature, high sulfur, and high humidity. The graphite layer can also prevent silver from penetrating into the working surface, and the contact welding phenomenon occurs during the opening and closing of the moving and static contacts, ensuring the normal operation of the system.

In addition, the corrosion resistance of AgW is also improved by adding additives. The oxidation rate of the AgW electrical contact with additives will slow down as the additive content increases.