Boron carbide and nitride as reactants for in situ synthesis of boride-containing ceramic composites

Using boron carbide (B4C) and boron nitride (here refers to hexagonal BN) as reactants, a series of boride-containing ceramic composites, mainly in the present work zirconium diboride-containing composites including zirconium diboride–zirconium carbide (ZrB2–ZrC), zirconium diboride–zirconium nitride (ZrB2–ZrN), zirconium diboride–silicon carbide (ZrB2–SiC) and zirconium diboride–aluminum nitride (ZrB2–AlN) were prepared by in situ reactive hot pressing. The features and the development mechanisms of the composite microstructures were characterized and modeled. The obtained zirconium diboride-containing composites demonstrated high bending strength. In addition, some general problems such as transformation between B4C and BN and thermodynamics of using B4C and BN as reactants were also briefly discussed.