Process obtaining diamonds fully explains its price. Required billions of yearsin which the molten rock of the Earth’s mantle is exposed to extremely high temperatures. pressure and temperature. Achieving this naturally is so difficult that people have been trying to do it for centuries. synthetic diamonds. Many have achieved this, but the process still has some disadvantages that make it difficult to obtain enough quantity to meet demand and, of course, reduce the price. However, a group of researchers from South Korean Institute of Basic Sciences He managed to do this in a much simpler way.
There are four main obstacles in the synthesis of synthetic diamonds. We have already seen the first two. Very high pressure and temperature conditions are required. The third one is time. Obviously we don’t have billions of years. In laboratories, this time has been significantly reduced, to just a few weeks, but this is still a long time. Finally, the last obstacle is the need core diamond. They cannot be created, so to speak, out of nothing.
Scientists from this Korean center managed to solve almost all these problems. Their synthetic diamonds are only produced 150 minutes, with a pressure of only 1 atmosphere and without the need for a diamond core. Yes, temperature more than 1000 ºC, approximately the same as in natural conditions. However, this is easier to achieve than the other requirements, so it is the best option developed so far.
Step by Step to Get Synthetic Diamonds
Naturally, diamond is formed from rock of the earth’s mantle for the same reason it is subjected to great pressure and temperature and is surrounded by molten metals. The end result is pure carbon. There are no atoms of other elements in diamond.
Therefore, to obtain synthetic diamonds it is necessary molten metals and carbon source. This has been researched for many years. Usually the carbon source is another small diamond, which, as we have already seen, serves as the core. But these scientists chose something different.
Its metal mixture consists of gallium, iron, nickel and silicon, molten at a temperature of 1025 ºC and a pressure of 1 atm., under vacuum conditions inside a graphite body. This housing heats up quickly and then cools under the influence of the mixture methane and hydrogen. Methane molecules consist of 1 carbon atom and 4 hydrogen atoms. There is a source of carbon.
Methane carbon atoms are able to spread throughout a mixture of molten metals and act as a seed for diamond formation. In just 15 minutes they are formed small crystals and after 150 minutes there is a continuous film of synthetic diamonds.
The concentration of diamond in the metal mixture decreases with depth, but scientists believe conditions can be slightly modified to produce more.
Much more than just decorations
Diamonds are highly valued in jewelry, but they also have other properties in a variety of fields.
For example, due to its great hardness, it can be used in industry for sawing, polishing or drilling holes in stone materials. It is also useful in the medical field for making some devices, especially in the field odontology.
It is no less useful in electronics; it is even used in the development of quantum computers. Therefore, many more diamonds are needed than we can obtain naturally. This process for producing synthetic diamonds is much simpler and may reduce costs in the future. So far the first results have been very good.
Source: Hiper Textual
