Research progress in preparation and application of h-BN containing ceramics

Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) ceramics are renowned for their exceptional mechanical properties, thermal shock resistance, chemical stability, and dielectric transparency, making them highly attractive for applications in fields such as medicine, coatings, 3D printing, metallurgy, machinery, and electronics. Currently, h-BN ceramics are primarily fabricated through sintering methods, including pressureless sintering, hot pressing, hot isostatic pressing, and spark plasma sintering. Nevertheless, due to their low sintering activity and low density, pure h-BN ceramics exhibit relatively poor mechanical properties. To address this, the addition of sintering aids and the incorporation of secondary phases are crucial. This manuscript reviews the preparation progress and applications of h-BN ceramics based on the sintering process of h-BN ceramics, and prospects the main research and development directions of h-BN ceramics preparation in the future.