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Caccia et al. now report a cermet that can withstand extreme temperatures, high pressures and rapid thermal cycling.

One technical challenge that must still be addressed concerns the oxidation resistance of the new cermet: the material is prone to oxidation in air at high temperatures such as might be experienced in a power-plant heat exchanger.

Supercritical CO2 is only a weak oxidizing agent, but could still break down the cermet.

Lastly, the authors’ preliminary estimates indicate that the combined costs of raw materials and processing required to make a heat exchanger from the ZrC/tungsten cermet would be lower than for an analogous heat exchanger made from a conventional nickel alloy.

Moreover, the cermet device would provide twice the power density — that is, it could be half the size of its nickel-alloy counterpart.