Scientists have revolutionized diamond synthesis with a groundbreaking method that creates diamonds at room temperature and pressure.
  • slazer2au@lemmy.worldEnglish
    724·
    14 days ago

    The diamonds produced using this method are minuscule, hundreds of thousands of times smaller than those grown with the HPHT method. Hence, these diamonds are far too small for jewelry applications.

    Ah, there’s the catch.

      • paraphrand@lemmy.worldEnglish
        19·
        13 days ago

        It’s a catch when your perspective is hoping it will impact the negatives of the jewelry industry.

        • Almrond@lemmy.worldEnglish
          151·
          13 days ago

          The problem wouldn’t be fixed even then. The jewelery companies have people convinced that the only diamonds that are worth it are mined from the earth by a real human slave. Fixing that problem has nothing to do with gemstones.

          • threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            3·
            13 days ago

            companies have people convinced that the only diamonds that are worth it are mined from the earth by a real human slave

            Is this still the case? I feel like I’ve seen “conflict free” as a selling point for (presumably labgrown) diamonds.

            • rockerface 🇺🇦@lemm.eeEnglish
              2·
              13 days ago

              Me too. I’ve also heard synthetic gemstones can have colours and structures unlike anything that can form naturally. I want one of those, so that nobody would mistake it for a mined stone.

        • Tyfud@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          13 days ago

          Will never happen until De beers exits the stage or is forced to.

          We already have incredibly easy to make and cheap diamonds that can rival and surpass any natural sized ones.

          They do not sell nearly as well because De beers has convinced everyone natural diamonds are a scarce resource, while they have a monopoly on the supply, of which there is no actual scarcity.

    • EleventhHour@lemmy.worldEnglish
      18·
      14 days ago

      For now. But diamonds are used for much more than simply jewelry. They have a vast number of industrial applications.

            • Atelopus-zeteki@fedia.io
              3·
              13 days ago

              No, see my comment above. It’s a reference to a Paul Simon song, “Diamonds on the soles of her shoes”. While they might make the shoe soles last longer, they would be abrasive to flooring materials, and so not really practical at any price.

                • Atelopus-zeteki@fedia.io
                  1·
                  13 days ago

                  The song is a rich girl/ poor boy love song with some significant political commentary, made more palatable by the catchy tune. The rich girl is so wealthy she could afford to have diamonds on her shoe soles. This was released on Graceland in 1986. Diamonds were/are mined in South Africa - dug from the ground by poor South Africans. The whole story about DeBoers controlling the supply and price of diamonds may not have broken at that point. And even to this day we can’t synthesize large ‘jewelry’ grade diamonds.

  • eleitl@lemm.eeEnglish
    101·
    14 days ago

    Abstract

    Natural diamonds were (and are) formed (thousands of million years ago) in the upper mantle of Earth in metallic melts at temperatures of 900–1,400 °C and at pressures of 5–6 GPa (refs. 1,2). Diamond is thermodynamically stable under high-pressure and high-temperature conditions as per the phase diagram of carbon3. Scientists at General Electric invented and used a high-pressure and high-temperature apparatus in 1955 to synthesize diamonds by using molten iron sulfide at about 7 GPa and 1,600 °C (refs. 4,5,6). There is an existing model that diamond can be grown using liquid metals only at both high pressure and high temperature7. Here we describe the growth of diamond crystals and polycrystalline diamond films with no seed particles using liquid metal but at 1 atm pressure and at 1,025 °C, breaking this pattern. Diamond grew in the subsurface of liquid metal composed of gallium, iron, nickel and silicon, by catalytic activation of methane and diffusion of carbon atoms into and within the subsurface regions. We found that the supersaturation of carbon in the liquid metal subsurface leads to the nucleation and growth of diamonds, with Si playing an important part in stabilizing tetravalently bonded carbon clusters that play a part in nucleation. Growth of (metastable) diamond in liquid metal at moderate temperature and 1 atm pressure opens many possibilities for further basic science studies and for the scaling of this type of growth.

  • Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    21·
    13 days ago

    Just a thought, but could these tiny diamonds be used to coat the surface of car tires to lower the amount of micro plastics they emit?