Abstract: Carbon-containing refractories are widely used in steelmaking equipment such as converters, electric arc furnaces, ladles, slide gates and continuous casting components. Traditional carbon-containing refractories have a high carbon content. During the smelting process where they are in direct contact with molten steel, carbon diffuses into the molten steel and causes carbon pickup. At the same time, these materials are easily oxidized and their production consumes high energy. Therefore, in the iron and steel industry, traditional carbon-containing refractories can no longer meet the development requirements of clean steel. Reducing the carbon content has thus become an urgent problem to solve. However, simply lowering the carbon content degrades the thermal shock resistance and slag corrosion resistance of carbon-containing refractories and directly affects their service life. Therefore, exploring the low-carbonization of carbon-containing refractories without performance loss is of great significance. At present, sufficient research has been conducted on the introduction of nanocarbon, the modification of binders and the addition of additives. Yet, the problem of carbon oxidation remains unsolved. Hence, the introduction of graphite-like materials with excellent oxidation resistance has become a new direction in the low-carbon research of carbon-containing refractories. These materials retain the layered structure and superior thermal conductivity and lubrication properties of graphite while offering better oxidation resistance and chemical stability.The research on the application of graphite-like materials is summarized such as MAX phases and h-BN in refractories and proposes suggestions for future studies on the introduction of graphite-like phases into carbon-containing refractories.