Refractory carbides and nitrides are useful materials with numerous industrial applications and a promising future, in addition to being materials of great interest to the scientific community. Although most of their applications are recent, the refractory carbides and nitrides have been known for over one hundred years. The industrial importance of the refractory carbides and nitrides is growing rapidly, not only in the traditional and well-established applications based on the strength and refractory nature of these materials such as cutting tools and abrasives, but also in new and promising fields such as electronics and optoelectronics.

The main objective of this book is to: (1) provide a complete review of the structures and properties of refractory carbides and nitrides; (2) provide a thorough assessment of the technology, processing, and equipment and systems used in production and R&D, with emphasis on advanced designs; and (3) identify and describe the applications, particularly new and emerging areas.

Refractory carbides and nitrides are useful materials with numerous industrial applications and a promising future, in addition to being materials of great interest to the scientific community. Although most of their applications are recent, the refractory carbides and nitrides have been known for over one hundred years. The industrial importance of the refractory carbides and nitrides is growing rapidly, not only in the traditional and well-established applications based on the strength and refractory nature of these materials such as cutting tools and abrasives, but also in new and promising.

The present stage of technological development makes new and ever more complex demands on materials that have to work under conditions of high temperature and pressure, in high vacuum, and in corrosive media. In consequence special importance is now at tached to the refractory compounds of transition metals of groups IV to VI with such nonmetals as boron, carbon, silicon, and nitro gen. These compounds possess high melting points, great hard ness, and high refractory and corrosion-resisting properties. The most widely used and important compounds of this type from a technological point of view are the carbides, which are already fairly widely used in various fields of technology. The present collection of papers contains the results of re cent investigations into methods of producing high-purity carbides and also components made of the carbides and their alloys. Great attention has been paid to the study of a wide range of properties of the carbides and of alloys based on them, viz., the electro-and thermophysical, thermodynamic, mechanical, and chemical prop erties, and also to the utilization of the carbides as wear-and abrasion-resistant materials. In contrast to many previous publications dealing with carbides, the results presented in this collection relate to the properties of carbides having a definite phase composition, corresponding to a higher degree of purity 0 In some of the contributions the physical and chemical properties of the carbides are interpreted in terms of certain solid-state models and concepts concerning the types of chemical bonding in these compounds.

The Refractory Carbides is intended as a guide to the chemist who wishes to undertake a fundamental study of refractory carbide systems. No effort has been made to discuss all of the properties for which information is available. Rather, the selection is intended to give the reader information and some insights which are basic to any measurement. This work includes a number of the more important physical and chemical properties of the nine transition elements included in Groups 4, 5, and 6 of the 4th, 5th, and 6th periods. The three actinide systems, Th-C, U-C, and Pu-C, have also been discussed. While this limited selection does not include all of the high melting carbides, it does include the more refractory and the more useful ones. These systems offer a unique collection of properties for an understanding of the chemical bond. Each system is discussed individually in terms of each property. These include phase relationship, lattice parameter and structure, chemical stability, hardness, and thermochemical properties which include vaporization behavior. In addition, the thermal data for the carbides and many of the associated elements have been reevaluated.

This exhaustive work in several volumes and over 2500 pages provides a thorough treatment of ultra-high temperature materials (with melting points around or over 2500 °C). The first volume focuses on carbon (graphene/graphite) and refractory metals (W, Re, Os, Ta, Mo, Nb and Ir), whilst the second and third are dedicated to refractory transition metal 4-5 groups carbides. Topics included are physical (structural, thermal, electro-magnetic, optical, mechanical, nuclear) and chemical (more than 3000 binary, ternary and multi-component systems, including those used for materials design, data on solid-state diffusion, wettability, interaction with various elements and compounds in solid and liquid states, gases and chemicals in aqueous solutions) properties of these materials. It will be of interest to researchers, engineers, postgraduate, graduate and undergraduate students alike. The readers/users are provided with the full qualitative and quantitative assessment, which is based on the latest updates in the field of fundamental physics and chemistry, nanotechnology, materials science, design and engineering.