Research Progress in Preparation and Application of TiB2 Coating

Titanium diboride (TiB2), as the compound with the smallest density and the highest hardness among metal borides, is one of the important advanced ceramic materials. It not only has the high melting point, high hardness and good chemical stability of traditional ceramics, but also has excellent electrical conductivity that traditional ceramics do not have. These properties render it suitable for many applications, such as in the manufacture of wear resistant parts and metal evaporation boats. Such excellent properties also make it a promising candidate as a coating material on cutting tools, cathodes in Hall-Heroult cells for primary aluminum smelting and aerospace vehicle parts. Based on the current research status, advantages and disadvantages of the TiB2 coating preparation technology such as vapor deposition, electrochemical deposition, thermal spraying, surface cladding, electric spark deposition and sol-gel were discussed. Moreover, the important applications of TiB2 ceramic coating in key fields were summarized, and the future development direction was prospected.