Lab Grown Diamonds: Grown under 15 minutes?

There sure are a lot of ways to produce diamonds but why consume more time and resources when they can be grown in under 20 minutes, no?

We’ll be talking about the same in this article since producing diamonds by natural processes like mining etc can be extremely time consuming as sometimes the conditions like weather and temperature may not favour your process.

Naturally produced diamonds are buried deep inside the earth’s surface. They require high amounts of effort and heat to extract. But since scientists have discovered ground breaking ways and technology to produce the same diamonds and stones in the labs that too in an undeniably short amount of time, let’s have a look.

A study in the journal Nature was published by Physical Chemist Rodney Ruoff from the Institute for Basic Science on April 24, South Korea.

Ruoff mentioned, “as far as today’s times are concerned, even the synthetic diamonds are made using extreme amounts of pressure, mainly using the HPHT method, which is the high-pressure high temperature method. But with that, come a lot of disadvantages/shortcomings as well like the HPHT method, as the name suggests, produces diamonds under extreme conditions.

It takes almost two weeks to produce the diamonds and the conditions are very hard to maintain.

Also, it requires a gem seed initially to start the further process. It sure can be done but who has the time for this, right?

But this new method that scientists have discovered gives the same results, in less time, and moderate conditions.”

This method works with the help of just atmospheric pressure and does not require weeks to produce diamonds. It takes about only 15 minutes.

The scientists employed electrically heated gallium, supplemented with a small amount of silicon, in a graphite crucible. They then placed the crucible inside a chamber that was kept at atmospheric pressure equivalent to sea level.

After extensive experimentation, researchers discovered that a blend of gallium, nickel, iron, and a small amount of silicon creates optimal conditions for diamonds to form rapidly, achieving this in just 15 minutes.

“For over a decade I have been thinking about new ways to grow diamonds, as I thought it might be possible to achieve this in what might be unexpected (per ‘conventional’ thinking) ways,” Ruoff was quoted as saying by Live Science.

This new method, however, also comes with its own challenges that the scientists have to face but nonetheless, it proves to be a great transformative move/replacement for the mined diamonds.

For example, the diamonds made this way are super tiny, much smaller than the ones made using the HPHT method. “In a year or two, we might know more about how this could affect businesses,” Ruoff said.