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Research Article | Open Access

Low-temperature densification of high-entropy (Ti,Zr,Nb,Ta,Mo)C–Co composites with high hardness and high toughness

Si-Chun LUOa,b, Wei-Ming GUOa(), Kevin PLUCKNETTa,c, Hua-Tay LINa()
School of Electromechanical Engineering, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China
School of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering, Pingxiang University, Pingxiang 337000, China
Department of Process Engineering and Applied Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax B3J1Z1, Canada
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Abstract

In order to prepare high toughness (Ti,Zr,Nb,Ta,Mo)C ceramics at low temperatures while maintaining high hardness, a liquid-phase sintering process combined with Co-based liquid-phase extrusion strategy was adopted in this study. The densification temperature can be lowered to 1350 ℃, which is much lower than the solid-state sintering temperature (~2000 ℃) generally employed for high-entropy carbide ceramics. When sintered at 1550 ℃ and 30 MPa applied pressure, part of the Co-based liquid-phase was squeezed out of the graphite mold, such that only ~3.21 vol% of Co remained in the high-entropy ceramic. Compared to the Co-free solid-state sintered (Ti,Zr,Nb,Ta,Mo)C ceramics, prepared at 2000 ℃ and 35 MPa, the hardness was slightly decreased from 25.06±0.32 to 24.11±0.75 GPa, but the toughness was increased from 2.25±0.22 to 4.07±0.13 MPa·m1/2. This work provides a new strategy for low-temperature densification of high-entropy carbides with both high hardness and high toughness.

Keywords

high-entropy carbide ceramicsliquid-phase sinteringmicrostructuregrain sizemechanical properties

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Journal of Advanced Ceramics
Volume 11 Issue 5,
May 2022
Pages 805-813
DOI: 10.1007/s40145-022-0574-6
Cite this article:
LUO S-C, GUO W-M, PLUCKNETT K, et al. Low-temperature densification of high-entropy (Ti,Zr,Nb,Ta,Mo)C–Co composites with high hardness and high toughness. Journal of Advanced Ceramics, 2022, 11(5): 805-813. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40145-022-0574-6
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