An overview of the synthesis of silicon carbide-boron carbide composite powders

Recently, silicon carbide-boron carbide composite ceramics have attracted more and more attention. The most important achievements of the silicon carbide-boron carbide composite ceramics should be applied in terms of mechanical, physical, and chemical for use in various advanced industries, such as armor plates, nozzles, abrasive tools, mechanical seals, etc. To prepare silicon carbide-boron carbide composite ceramics with good performance, the synthesis of silicon carbide-boron carbide composite powders is the basis. The synthesis approaches of silicon carbide-boron carbide composite powders are systematically summarized in this review, including ball milling, high-energy ball milling, self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS), and sol-gel. Particularly, nanosized silicon carbide-boron carbide composite powders can be in situ synthesized by high-energy ball milling, SHS, or sol-gel. When commercial silicon carbide and/or boron carbide powders are used as raw materials to synthesize silicon carbide-boron carbide composite powders, the pretreatment of acid etching can significantly remove oxide layers existing on the surfaces of initial powders.