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B 4 C ceramics were fabricated by a hot-press sintering and its sintering behavior, microstructure and mechanical properties were evaluated. The relative density of B 4 C ceramics were obtained by a hot-press sintering reached as high as 99% without any sintering additives. The mechanical properties of B 4 C ceramics was improved by a methanol washing which can remove B 2 O 3 phase from a B 4 C powder surface. This improvement is resulted from the formation of homogeneous microstructure because the grain coarsening was suppressed by the elimination of B 2 O 3 phase. Particularly, the mechanical properties of the sintered samples using a methanol washed powder improved compared with the samples using an asreceived commercial powder.