This study investigated the material removal mechanism of sapphire wafer with soft-hard mixed abrasives through mechanical chemical polishing (MCP). The polishing film, which contains diamond as hard abrasives and high reactivity silica as soft abrasives, is prepared through sol-gel technology. Silica abrasives with regular spherical shape and high reactivity are prepared through hydrolysis-precipitation. Diamond grits with three different particle sizes are used as abrasives. Results show that the rate of material removal of mixed abrasives during MCP is more than 52.6% of that of single hard abrasives and the decrease in surface roughness is more than 21.6% of that of single hard abrasives. These results demonstrate that the ideal planarization of sapphire wafer with high removal rate and good surface quality can be achieved when the effect of mechanical removal of hard abrasives and the chemical corrosion effect of soft abrasives are in dynamic equilibrium. A model that describes the material removal mechanism of sapphire with mixed abrasives during MCP is proposed. The results of thermodynamic calculation and polishing residue analysis are used to demonstrate the rationality of the model. (C) 2016 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.