How China crashed the synthetic diamond market

Many builders hold diamonds in their hands almost every day. Rather, diamond powder in a cutting tool - discs and crowns for cutting and processing stone:

The cost of obtaining technical diamonds has now dropped 20 times compared to 10-20 years ago. The market for synthetic industrial diamonds has collapsed from Chinese manufacturers. They write that in 2009 Ukraine has sold to China technology and a special press for the production of such diamonds. Those stamped tens of thousands of them and collapsed the diamond powder market.

In the 80s. Ukraine has synthesized up to 200 million. carats of diamonds, and today less than 60 million. carats. Four out of five diamond powder production facilities have been sold to foreign owners. More details: http://expert.in.ua/articles/16/0/3874

These prices are not in dollars or yuan. These are the prices on the alibaba.com website already in rubles. Moreover, as it is written, 500 carats of powder will be provided to you as a sample. And there, on the site, there are dozens of such offers. I did not find on which presses this diamond powder is obtained, but I found examples of Chinese equipment for the production of mono-diamonds:

Workshops of Chinese manufacturers with hundreds of installations for the production of synthetic diamonds

One of the proposals from a Chinese manufacturer of similar presses for the synthesis of diamonds. And there are many such offers on alibaba.com:

Prices - from 11 mln. rub.

Gem-quality diamonds produced at these facilities and the price level per carat. Apparently the price depends on the clarity and size of the diamond.

Again, I am not saying that diamond powder in China is produced on such presses. These installations are specifically for the synthesis of mono-diamonds. But for something the same powder is produced there in huge quantities. The diamond powder itself is useless sand until it is pressed with metal:

Segments with diamond powder for cutting tools. If diamond sand is fused with metal, then it collapses, turns into graphite at a temperature of 1500 gr. These segments are made by cold pressing. The cost of segments on alibaba.com is from 36 rubles / piece. depending on the size. Segments are pressed on small presses that create a very high pressure - up to 1000 kgf / cm2:

Follow the link in the source to watch a video of the process of stamping segments with diamond powder.

Based on this information, China has taken the lead in synthetic (gem and technical) diamonds. But why are natural diamond prices so high? As I understood, there are methods that absolutely determine whether it is a natural diamond or a synthetic one. This is determined by instruments or by highly qualified assessors. And the rich, as you know, love everything genuine. So the demand for natural diamonds remains.

Some experts do not exclude the artificial support of demand for natural diamonds by monopolists. Natural diamonds are not used in optical systems and power microelectronics. They are not uniform in structure.

The technology of diamond synthesis came out of science in the USSR. Where are our manufacturers? There are not many of them, but they are.

One such enterprise is located in Belarus. This market for large synthetic diamonds began to grow from him:

Devices of the technology "Pressless apparatus" split sphere "- (BARS). Unique technology of Soviet scientists.

You can read about the enterprise and technology here: http://navote.ru/?p=11470

Briefly, the process of growing diamonds looks like this. The seed diamond is placed in a ceramic container in a mixture of graphite and various additives. Heated to 1500 gr. and create a pressure of 1800 atm. In three days, a large diamond grows, and with better optical properties than natural (without impurities and homogeneous).

A workshop with installations for the synthesis of diamonds by the Russian company New Diamond Technology (NDT) using HPHT (High Pressure High Temperature) technology.

There is a technology for synthesis from a methane medium at high temperatures CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition). We will not dwell on it. There are many diamond synthesis technologies. I think a lot has not yet been discovered and studied. Here is an example from the 19th century, when by the Sachs method, diamonds were chemically synthesized from cast iron (iron with carbon):

300 carats from 1 kg of cast iron! And if they also turned out large? In those days, they could be passed off as natural and certain circles to receive huge fortunes. Chinese manufacturers have not thought of this yet... Then diamonds will definitely be cheaper than rice.

A modern patent for a similar technology at the link: https://yandex.ru/patents/doc/RU2586140C1_20160610

It is this method that can explain the formation of natural diamonds in kimberlite pipes. Formation through degassing in the melt, and not the removal of diamonds from the depths, the so-called deep fluids.

More technology means less speculation. And the cheaper and more accessible diamond cutting tools are, the better for ordinary builders.

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Photo taken from open sources, from Yandex. Pictures

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