A dual‐phase high‐entropy boride (HEB)/carbide (HEC) ceramic with a fine grain size was synthesized by a sequential boro/carbothermal process. In the first step, an Hf–Nb–Ta–Ti–Zr‐containing carbide was synthesized by a carbothermal reduction of oxides followed by the reaction of the carbide with B4C and ZrH2 to convert part of the carbide to boride. The resulting composition was ∼29 vol% HEB with an average grain size of ∼1.1 μm. Solid solution formation occurred at the densification temperature of 1900°C resulting in a relative density higher than 99%. The Vickers hardness was 26.5 ± 1.4 GPa. This is the first report of synthesizing dual‐phase boride–carbide high‐entropy ceramics from carbothermally synthesized, HEC powders.

Thermal and electrical properties were measured for TiB2 ceramics containing varying CrB2 contents up to 33 mol%. The room‐temperature thermal diffusivity decreased with increasing Cr content from 0.330 ± 0.003 cm2/s for pure TiB2 to 0.060 ± 0.003 cm2/s for (Ti0.66Cr0.33)B2. The amount of anisotropy in the coefficients of thermal expansion increased with increasing Cr content and the c‐axis had the greatest dependence on Cr addition, with an increase of more than 25% in the thermal expansion for 33 mol% CrB2 compared to TiB2, whereas the a‐axis only increased by about 8%. The electrical conductivity was the lowest for (Ti0.66Cr0.33)B2 at ∼8.5 × 103 S/cm compared to ∼106.1 × 103 S/cm for nominally pure TiB2. Overall, the addition of CrB2 as a sintering aid for TiB2 was shown to have a significant effect on the thermal and electrical properties of TiB2 for additions as small as 5 mol% CrB2.

Dual-phase, high-entropy boride-carbide ceramics were densified by pressureless sintering. Relative densities up to approximately 96% were obtained for ceramics containing about 30 vol% high-entropy boride and 70 vol% high-entropy carbide. Isostatic pressing at 200 MPa resulted in higher relative densities of both the green bodies and final ceramics compared to uniaxial pressing. The highest relative density of 96.3% was achieved for a ceramic that was isostatically pressed at 200 MPa and sintered at 2300 • C for 2 h. Grain sizes of the resulting ceramics were approximately 2 µm. This is the first report of pressureless sintering of dual-phase, high-entropy boride-carbide ceramics.

No abstract

No abstract