Spark plasma sintering and improved fracture toughness of silicoboron carbonitride ceramics with the integration of 2D MXene.

MXenes have good application prospects due to the attractive mechanical and physicochemical properties. Here, for the first time, silicoboron carbonitride (Si–B–C–N) ceramics with the integration of MXene(Ti 3 C 2 T x) nanosheets were developed, and the influences of MXene additives (1.0–3.0 wt%) on mechanical properties and microstructures were investigated. The ceramics containing 3.0 wt% MXene(Ti 3 C 2 T x) show better mechanical properties including fracture toughness of 7.6 MPa‧m1/2, 36% higher than ceramics without any additives. The toughening mechanisms consist of pull-out, delamination, crack bridging, and crack deflection. This work demonstrates that MXenes are good reinforcements for enhancing the fracture toughness of structural ceramics, and also paves the way for the investigation of high-temperature properties of MXene-containing ceramics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]