Yang, X., Nadendla, H.B., Fang, C. et al. (9 more authors) (2026) Ultrahigh strength magnesium via solidification of nanocolloid. Nature Communications, 17. 5106. ISSN: 2041-1723
Abstract
We report a simple, scalable route to produce ultrahigh-strength magnesium (Mg) via solidification of a colloidal solution containing nanoscale niobium carbide (NbC) particles suspended in liquid magnesium (Mg(l)). A single-atom-level investigation reveals that NbC exhibits spontaneous wetting with molten Mg, driven by the formation of an ordered layer of Mg atoms strongly bonded to the carbon atoms on the NbC {001} surface. This creates Mg-coated NbC (Mg@NbC) particles in liquid Mg and is referred to as Mg(l)-Mg@NbC nanocolloid. This unique and spontaneous wetting behaviour enables uniform nanoparticle dispersion in the molten Mg without external fields, and in the solidified Mg matrix without the need for thermomechanical processing. The resulting NbC dispersoids act as coherent, hard reinforcement phases, significantly strengthening the Mg matrix. As a result, the Mg-NbC material exhibits ultrahigh tensile strength and stiffness, surpassing those of all previously reported Mg alloy systems.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
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| Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2026. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Dates: |
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| Institution: | The University of Leeds |
| Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Chemical & Process Engineering (Leeds) |
| Date Deposited: | 15 Jun 2026 08:59 |
| Last Modified: | 15 Jun 2026 08:59 |
| Published Version: | https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-71671-x |
| Status: | Published |
| Publisher: | Springer Nature |
| Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41467-026-71671-x |
| Related URLs: | |
| Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:241809 |
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