Posted on 05/07/2024 11:46:04 AM PDT by Red Badger
South Korean researchers have developed a new technique for creating synthetic diamonds — and they think they’ve only scratched the surface of its potential.
Synthetic diamonds: Aside from jewelry, diamonds are used in drilling, manufacturing, healthcare, quantum computing, and more. The cost and uncertainty of finding the right kind of diamonds in nature inspired scientists to see if they could make them in the lab.
In the 1950s, a team at General Electric pulled it off using a process called “high-pressure high-temperature” (HPHT), which mimics the conditions that create diamonds in nature. This process is still used to make 99% of synthetic diamonds, though one called “chemical vapor deposition” (CVD), which doesn’t require high pressures, also works.
Both techniques are far faster than the natural method, producing diamonds in weeks instead of eons, but they require expensive equipment, and diamonds produced using them are typically limited in size.
What’s new? Researchers at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) in South Korea have announced a new way to make synthetic diamonds under ambient pressure in under three hours.
The technique starts with creating a liquid metal alloy out of four elements (gallium, iron, nickel, and silicon). The mix is then exposed to methane and hydrogen gasses at a temperature of about 1025 C (1877 F) and a pressure of 1 atm (the same as air at sea level).
Though the researchers don’t fully understand how or why, something about this combination of ingredients and conditions causes the carbon in the gasses to form a diamond film on top of the alloys, which can later be detached and applied to other surfaces.
Looking ahead: This is still early research, and more work is needed to determine how the new technique for creating synthetic diamonds compares to existing ones in terms of cost. So far, the largest of the team’s diamond films is just tens of micrometers wide, but they believe the technique is scalable, which could make it useful for many diamond applications.
“It’s quite evident that this could be used to develop thin coatings of diamond on surfaces, and we use these all the time,” Torben Daeneke, a materials chemist at RMIT University, who wasn’t involved in the study, told Chemistry World.
“You could think about using this as an anti-corrosive coating in chemical reactors, for example. … Gallium is a relatively abundant, non-toxic liquid metal and all you have to do here is place it on the surface you want to coat and flush some methane over it,” he continued.
The IBS researchers have already figured out that they can grow synthetic diamonds using the new technique and other alloys, including one where the nickel is replaced with cobalt, and they’re hopeful their work will lead to even more discoveries in diamond synthesis.
“New designs and methods for introducing carbon atoms and/or small carbon clusters into liquid metals for diamond growth will surely be important,” said lead researcher Rod Ruoff.
“The creativity and technical ingenuity of the worldwide research community seem likely to me, based on our discovery, to rapidly lead to other related approaches and experimental configurations,” he continued. “There are numerous intriguing avenues to explore!”
Why would they make the process known when they could make a fortune by just making diamonds on the cheap?
I saw Superman crush a piece of coal in his bare hands and make it a diamond. He gave it to Lois. Cheapskate.
Terribly written article doesn’t say what company they work for. IBS?
He did that on the Superman TV show to replace a idol’s eye that was stolen by some bad guys.............
Maybe it’s not patentable?..........................
Then just make them and keep quiet on HOW they are made. DeBeers would pay a fortune to keep them off the market.
no pressure there. still waiting for someone to come up with a way to spin straw into gold.
I’ve never understood the passion for diamonds. I like colored stones.
A lot of people probably do not know that diamonds are not rare. DeBeers controls the rarity by keeping them in a vault.
The primary method these days of telling the difference between "natural" and man-made diamonds is that man-made diamonds don't have flaws.they are actually better than the real thing by almost any metric you care to name, yet idiots will still pay actual money for diamonds that they think are 'natural'. Carbon is one of the most common elements on this planet.I never have understood why people have been so hoodwinked by deBeers for so long.
Speaking of Lois Lane, I guess you heard about how the Invisible Man suffered that incredible injury from Superman.
Dan Briggs and Barney Collier used a diamond making machine to stop a villain in early Mission Impossible.
The usual sleight of hand and mechanical trickery.
The Diamond - episode title.
Thanks! All my searches had been returning to me articles about stuff happening in the inside of peoples rectums.
Acronyms can be terribly misleading.
Ah. I remember that episode.
““chemical vapor deposition” (CVD)”
I hope it works. I spend a fortune on specialty cutters that use CVD technology. It takes a $100 cutter and makes it a $600 cutter.
Using lasers you can actually carve diamonds into desired shapes. Imagine making an artificial blue diamond layer then cutting a face into it. Deposit a clear diamond layer on top of that. Viola! Custom diamond art!
I can see the Elvis crowd doing it now................
It is not the natural diamond that impresses the ladies, it is because it costs so much. I would cut that *$(*&W#(* loose in a heartbeat. If you are looking for a nice looking ring, gold setting and a man made diamond should suffice.
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