High-entropy ceramics (HECs) represent an emerging class of multifunctional materials that exploit the high-entropy design concept—incorporating multiple principal elements in equimolar or near-equimolar proportions into a single crystalline lattice—to achieve property combinations unattainable by conventional ceramics. These materials hold significant scientific promise and application potential in the field of tribology. A comprehensive invited review published in Journal of Advanced Ceramics critically assesses the current state of tribological research on HECs, identifying key challenges and outlining future directions for the field.
The review covers six major HEC families: carbides, borides, silicides, oxides, nitrides, and MAX phases, based on a systematic screening of over 500 publications. Comparative analysis reveals that carbides and nitrides have received far more research attention than silicides and borides, highlighting an unbalanced research landscape. Overall, HECs exhibit superior wear resistance and adaptive lubrication compared with conventional ceramics, a benefit attributed to the synergistic effects of lattice distortion, sluggish diffusion, and the "cocktail effect" intrinsic to high-entropy systems, which collectively enhance mechanical properties and tribo-chemical responsiveness.
Nevertheless, the review emphasizes that the field remains in its infancy, confronting three major bottlenecks. First, the absence of standardized tribological test protocols makes cross-study comparisons difficult, given the wide variation in test conditions such as load, sliding speed, temperature, and counterbody materials. Second, the mechanisms underlying the high-entropy effect in friction and wear—particularly the coupling between entropy-driven stabilization and oxidation behavior at elevated temperatures—remain poorly understood. Third, the high synthesis cost of HECs, which currently rely heavily on energy-intensive processes such as spark plasma sintering, limits their scalability for industrial adoption.
To address these challenges, the review identifies three priority pathways: data-driven rational design, multi-scale mechanistic modeling, and cost-effective manufacturing strategies. The corresponding author of the review commented: "High-entropy ceramics offer a new materials platform for adaptive lubrication under extreme conditions. However, to bridge the gap between laboratory research and industrial application, it is essential to establish unified performance evaluation standards and to deepen our understanding of high-entropy tribological mechanisms through in situ characterization, machine learning, and digital twin approaches." He further emphasized that the development of low-cost elemental systems and scalable coating technologies represents the most viable route toward industrial translation.
This review not only provides a systematic summary of the current achievements in HEC tribology but also offers a clear roadmap for rational design and technology transfer. As data-driven methodologies and advanced manufacturing techniques converge, HECs are poised to play a critical role in extreme-service components such as aerospace engine bearings, high-speed cutting tools, and nuclear reactor parts, delivering next-generation materials solutions that combine wear resistance and self-lubrication for advanced mechanical systems.
The team published their work in Journal of Advanced Ceramics on 28 August 2026.
Elaboration by Professor Hengzhong Fan of the Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Research focus: Lubrication protection and performance evaluation of high-end equipment under extreme environments) on the invited review published in Journal of Advanced Ceramics:
"This invited review, completed by our team in collaboration with multiple domestic research institutions, systematically summarizes the research progress of high-entropy ceramics in the field of tribology. As an emerging class of multifunctional materials, high-entropy ceramics leverage the unique high-entropy design concept—incorporating multiple principal elements in equimolar or near-equimolar proportions into a single crystalline lattice—to achieve property combinations unattainable by conventional ceramics. They exhibit significant scientific value and application potential in tribological applications under extreme conditions."
"This work comprehensively investigates the tribological behaviors of six mainstream HEC systems, including carbides, borides, silicides, oxides, nitrides, and MAX phases. Based on the systematic analysis of over 500 published studies, an obvious research imbalance is found: carbides and nitrides have been widely studied, while silicides and borides are rarely reported. Benefiting from the synergistic effects of lattice distortion, sluggish diffusion and cocktail effects, HECs exhibit far superior wear resistance and adaptive self-lubricating performance compared with traditional ceramics, optimizing the mechanical properties and tribochemical response of materials."
"Nevertheless, HEC tribology is still in the initial stage of development and faces three key bottlenecks. First, inconsistent testing parameters such as load, sliding speed, temperature and counterbody materials lead to non-standard tribological data, hindering cross-study comparative analysis. Second, the coupling mechanism between high-entropy effect, structural stabilization and high-temperature oxidation during friction and wear remains unclear. Third, the mainstream fabrication method of spark plasma sintering is energy-intensive and costly, severely restricting the large-scale industrial application of HECs. With the integration of data-driven methods and advanced manufacturing technologies, HECs will become a new generation of wear-resistant and self-lubricating materials for extreme-condition components such as aero-engine bearings, high-speed cutting tools and nuclear reactor parts, providing reliable material solutions for advanced mechanical systems."
Other contributors include Xiande Zheng, Wei Yan, Jingqing Zhang, Guoqing Wei, Yunfeng Su, Hongxiang Chen, Yongsheng Zhang from the State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China; Qichun Sun from the School of Materials Science and Engineering, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, China; Jicheng Li from the Key Laboratory of Advanced Marine Materials, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China; Yanchun Zhou from Suzhou Laboratory, China; Qiangqiang Zhang from the College of Civil Engineering and Mechanics, Lanzhou University, China; Weibin Zhang from the State Key Laboratory of Coatings for Advanced Equipment, School of Materials Science & Engineering, Shandong University, China; Yuan Fang from the School of Material Science and Engineering, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Green Preparation and Functionalization for Inorganic Materials, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, China; Mingliang Li from the School of Material Science and Engineering, Fujian University of Technology, China; Hailong Wang from the National Key Laboratory of Special Rare Metal Materials, Zhengzhou University, China.
About Author
Hengzhong Fan is a researcher at the Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Weibin Zhang is a professor at the School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shandong University. His main research interests cover theoretical design of hard and wear-resistant materials, development of materials genome engineering technologies, and applications of machine learning in materials design.
Yongsheng Zhang is a researcher at the Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research primarily focuses on the creation of new materials and their friction, wear, lubrication, and sealing properties.
Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. U23A20562, U25A20229, and 52502081), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2025M770063), the Outstanding Youth Fund Project of Gansu Province (No. 24JRRA040) and the Science and Technology Program of Gansu Province (No. 23ZDKA0001).
DOI Link:
https://doi.org/10.26599/JAC.2026.9221365
