[1][2][3] Its high melting point (comparable to silica or alumina) and chemically inert nature have led to occasional examination of potential use as a refractory material for crucibles, but it has never been widely adopted for this application.

[2] Following the synthetic procedures given above will yield mostly the α- and β- polymorphs, with the proportion of α-Ce2S3 increasing at lower temperatures (~700–900 °C) and with longer reaction times.

[5][6] Some reported reactions of cerium(III) sulfide are with bismuth compounds in order to form superconducting crystalline materials of the M(O,F)BiS2 family (for M=Ce).

[3] The strong red hues of α- and β-Ce2S3, non-prohibitive cost of cerium, and chemically inert behaviour up to high temperature are the factors which make the compound desirable as a pigment.

Regarding other applications, the γ-Ce2S3 polymorph has a band gap of 2.06 eV and high Seebeck coefficient, thus it has been proposed as a high-temperature semiconductor for thermoelectric generators.