Research Progress of High-entropy Carbide Ultra-high Temperature Ceramics

The development of high-speed flight technology has put forward an urgent demand for high-performance thermal structure materials.High-entropy carbides (HECs) are a fast-emerging family of materials that combine the excellent properties of high-entropy ceramics and ultra-high temperature ceramics.HECs have a broad application prospect in extreme service environments, which has received extensive attention from scholars in recent years.Compared with traditional ultra-high temperature carbides containing only one or two transition metal elements, HECs have a greater potential for development because of their improved comprehensive performance and greater designability of composition and properties.After successive exploration of HECs in recent years, researchers have obtained many interesting results, developed a variety of preparation methods for HECs, and gained comprehensive understanding of the microstructure and properties of HECs.The basic theories of HECs and the laws obtained from the experimental process are reviewed in this paper.The preparation methods of HECs including powders, blocks, coatings and films, as well as fiber-reinforced HECs-based composites are summarized.And the progress of the research on the properties of HECs, such as the mechanical properties, thermal properties, and especially the oxidation and ablation resistance related to high-temperature applications, are reviewed and discussed.Finally, the scientific problems that need to be further explored in the research of HECs are emphasized, and the prospect of HECs is proposed.