Would you believe that a majority of the worldwide diamond trade is dominated not by jewelry, but by diamond abrasives?
For an extremely wide variety of industries, diamonds are an extremely valuable resource, but not because they are shiny and beautiful. In fact, many find diamonds valuable not because they are attractive, but because they are the exact opposite – opaque, dull, unremarkable, but extremely hard. That’s right, It’s been mentioned before but it doesn’t hurt to repeat it again – the global market for diamonds does not mine diamonds solely for use as jewelry. Only about 20% of the diamonds mined actually land on someone’s finger or neck, with the remaining 80% finding themselves crushed and bonded to the end of a drill bit, as polishing powder, or as an abrasive.
When you think about it, it’s perfectly logical. As the hardest naturally occurring mineral, diamond powder is the perfect solution when you need to polish or grind with greater power and efficiency. Every day, people around the world make use of diamond powder.
For example, if you scratched the windshield or mirror of your car – you might be able to use diamond powder to remove the scratch, as glass is one of the substrates that benefit from diamond powder the most. Not only does this offer a simple solution, but it also helps you save money by not having to completely replace your windshield.
Or for another example, consider for a moment all of the “antique” programs you see on television. Every one of them shows antique shop and pawn shop owners selling their priceless finds for large amounts of money. Chances are that many of the pieces they sell were once terribly tarnished and scratched, apart from specialty cloths and chemicals – diamond powders are one resource that they frequently take advantage of to restore their antiques to a more flawless finish.
But how is diamond powder created?
To move from “whole diamond” to “diamond powder” a lapidary uses the process called micronization. Micronization takes place when a special fluid or gas is used to break down and render solid diamonds into a powdered form. While the process involves a bit more than simply “crushing” the diamonds into a fine dust, the results it yields are pretty amazing.
The micronization process as a whole produces a large number of tiny diamond grains of the same size – measured in microns. To add a little perspective to the tiny measurement, one micron is equal to one millionth of a meter, a tiny speck barely visible to the naked eye. Using this system, diamond powder is measured by how coarse or fine its particles are, and how the different levels of coarseness produce wildly varying results.
Typically, abrasive diamond powder can be as small as 1/10th micron to 250 microns, with extreme attention paid to ensuring that the diamond dust particle are all the same size. This is because diamond grains shaped differently than the majority of the powder can scratch a material when the intent is to actually polish it.
So as you can see, diamonds are actually much more than “forever” as the popular slogan says. Diamonds turned to dust may not become a family heirloom, but they live on in the impact they make on virtually everything they touch.
