Research progress on rare earth cemented carbide

Given that rare earth metals and compounds have many excellent properties, adding rare earth elements to ordinary cemented carbide in a certain way can not only improve its hardness, flexural strength and fracture toughness, but also purify the grain boundaries and improve the wetness of hard phase and bonded phase. Moreover, cemented carbide containing rare earth elements can play a unique role in various fields of modern science and technology. Thus it is of great necessity to conduct more comprehensive and systematic researches on rare earth cemented carbide. This paper first presents an overview of the development status of rare earth cemented carbide, then gives an introduction to the addition forms and methods of rare earth and the influence of rare earth elements on the microstructure of cemented carbide, and finally, gives some predictions on the research directions and trends in cemented carbide.