[5] The melting points of tantalum carbides was previously estimated to be about 3,880 °C (4,150 K; 7,020 °F) depending on the purity and measurement conditions; this value is among the highest for binary compounds.

The more stable one has an anti-cadmium iodide-type trigonal structure, which transforms upon heating to about 2,000 °C into a hexagonal lattice with no long-range order for the carbon atoms.

TaC is a superconductor with a relatively high transition temperature of TC = 10.35 K.[15] The magnetic properties of TaCx change from diamagnetic for x ≤ 0.9 to paramagnetic at larger x.

[20] Tantalum carbide is widely used as sintering additive in ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs) or as a ceramic reinforcement in high-entropy alloys (HEAs) due to its excellent physical properties in melting point, hardness, elastic modulus, thermal conductivity, thermal shock resistance, and chemical stability, which makes it a desirable material for aircraft and rockets in aerospace industries.

In addition, the uniform distribution of TaC particles contributes to the yield stress explained by Hall-Petch relationship due to a decrease in grain size.

XRD patterns showed that the resulting material is mainly composed of a single BCC crystal structure in the base alloy MoNbRe0.5W and a multi-component (MC) type carbide of (Nb, Ta, Mo, W)C to form a lamellar eutectic structure, with the amount of MC phase proportional to TaC addition.

TEM analysis showed that the lamellar interface between BCC and MC phase presents a smooth and curvy morphology which exhibits good bonding with no lattice misfit dislocations.

As a result, the grain size decreases with increasing TaC addition which improves the yield stress explained by Hall-Petch relationship.

The resulting is a formation of “black-core-white rim” structure with decreasing grain size in the region of 3-5 wt% TaC addition and increasing transverse rupture strength (TRS).