https://english.news.cn/20240111/837a5bd913bd425992e456b01517b016/c.html
Chu Yanhui and his team at the South China University of Technology in Guangzhou, have created a new porous ceramic that is ultrastrong at elevated temperatures and simultaneously high thermal insulating,It is based on a Imultiscale structure design and fast fabrication of 9-cation porous high-entropy diboride ceramics via an ultrafast high-temperature synthesis technique that can lead to exceptional mechanical load-bearing capability and high thermal insulation performance. With the construction of multiscale structures involving ultrafine pores at the microscale, high-quality interfaces between building blocks at the nanoscale, and severe lattice distortion at the atomic scale, the materials with an ≈50% porosity exhibit an ultrahigh compressive strength of up to ≈337 MPa at room temperature and a thermal conductivity as low as ≈0.76 W m−1 K−1. More importantly, they demonstrate exceptional thermal stability, with merely ≈2.4% volume shrinkage after 2000 °C annealing. They also show an ultrahigh compressive strength of ≈690 MPa up to 2000 °C, displaying a ductile compressive behavior. The excellent mechanical and thermal insulating properties offer an attractive material for reliable thermal insulation under extreme conditions.
Ultrastrong diboride ceramics achieve and thermal insulation up to 2000 °C