They say you can buy anything on the Internet if you know the right places to go, and apparently if you’re in the mood to make diamonds, then Alibaba is the spot. You even have your choice of high-pressure, high-temperature (HPHT) machine for $200,000, or a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) version, which costs more than twice as much. Here’s a bit more about how each process works.
Of course, you’ll need way more than just the machine and a power outlet. Additional resources are a must, and some expertise would go a long way. Even so, you end up with raw diamonds that need to be processed in order to become gems or industrial components.
For HPHT, you’d also need a bunch of good graphite, catalysts such as iron and cobalt, and precise control systems for temperature and pressure, none of which are included as a kit with the machine.
For CVD, you’d need methane and hydrogen gases, and precise control of microwaves or hot filaments. In either case, you’re not getting anywhere without diamond seed crystals.
Right now, the idea of Joe Hacker making diamonds in his garage seems about as far off as home 3D printing did in about 1985. But we got there, didn’t we? Hey, it’s a thought.
Main and thumbnail images via Unsplash
“You could do that but why, why would you do that.” – Benjamin Franklin
“what do you mean by I died from syphilis contracted from a French prostitute” – Benjamin Franklin
Diamonds have been a dirty business for a very long time. From “De Beers” monopolizing the market and keeping prices artificially high to blood diamond funding African war lords. Diamond have been made at an industrial scale for many years now. Small diamonds have gone down in price to a few hundred EUR/kg. And the last 10 to 20 years it’s finally happening: De Beers is finally loosing market share big time. There has been a feud going on between the people who traditionally dig diamonds out of the ground, and the people who make diamonds in factories and the latter is finally winning. They started with breaking open the monopoly when it finally became possible to make gem quality diamonds, and entered the market by adding “artificial” or “lab grown” to the diamond name. And quality is still improving. One of the last hurdles to make the “lab grown” diamonds indistinguishable from the rocks dug out of the ground is to figure out how to build in imperfections that occur in “natural” diamonds dug out of the ground. Once that happens and they become indistinguishable from each other prices will go down further, and hopefully even the (too) rich folks will finally realize their folly. The price of diamonds is very much dependent on their size and “quality”. Technology has now progressed far enough that it’s possible to make bigger gem quality diamonds then the biggest that have been dug out of the ground, and for less then 10% of the price of the old artificially inflated prices, and I guess it will go down further significantly, So don’t buy diamonds as a long term investment.
And a nice touch: Some companies are specializing in making gem quality diamonds out of the remains of a loved one after a sad event of him or her passing away too early, so you’ll always have something precious you can carry with you as a remembrance to him or her.
I mostly blame the consumers and their vanity. You can’t love your spouse until they give you a crystal?
I believe the original concept was that the engagement ring (which never used to be diamond) was a ‘deposit’ in your intention to marry, and the wedding ring was a life insurance policy so they could sell it and eat should you fall under a horse & cart.
They didn’t need the rock for thousands of years, and suddenly after a blitz of marketing everyone did. People seek status, it’s part of human nature. But it’s not like consumers spontaneously organized around this tradition, it was a PR move
Gave my wife a lab-grown diamond, brilliant yellow, 2ct, flawless when we got engaged. Someone take a gander at what that price would have been had I purchased an “Earth-grown” version… oof!
Supposedly there’s a massive diamond field off the west coast of Africa in relatively shallow water. I had a crazy (and bad) plan back in high school to buy a used submarine and go mine for them. Then I started doing the math on what undersea mining actually takes and just how bad it can be for the environment.
Lab grown is the way to go.
Too bad there isn’t an efficient way of making diamonds from excess CO2 in the atmosphere. Think of the money to be made from selling Carbon Captured Diamonds. “Your diamond was made from Earth warming CO2. You can save the planet one diamond at a time. Tiffany”. The uber rich eco celebs would jump on it.
Ha yeah they would and also completely ignore the (far larger amount of) carbon used to power the machinery that made it. Classic
IIRC, there was a startup proposing to do exactly that?
Got this ideea 20 years ago or more, but I do not have the chemistry knowledge to do it.
You can use solar power, thus both reducing CO2 and cooling the planet (you don’t burn fossil fuel for the required energy).