Synthetic diamonds are the perfect alternative to their natural counterpart. As it is an exact copy of them, it is cheaper.
The wonderful appearance, the hardness of the artificial diamond stone. The distinguished price has allowed many, whose budgets do not allow the acquisition of natural diamonds. To obtain a distinctive synthetic piece that is difficult to differentiate from the natural.
With the entry of industrial diamonds into the field of jewelry and its competition with the natural, it now enjoys certificates of accreditation and evaluation from competent authorities that can determine the accuracy of each industrial raw diamond, foremost of which is the certificate of the American Gemological Institute (GIA).
Signs to distinguish between natural and synthetic diamonds
It is difficult to differentiate between natural and synthetic diamonds just by looking at them. Because they have almost the same chemical composition and many physical properties.
However, there are some details that can be emphasized to differentiate the two types.
The first thing has to do with the size, there is usually no variety of sizes of natural diamonds. Usually no more than 1.5 carats.
There is a second point regarding the color. Natural diamonds are distinguished by several colors other than white, such as yellow, blue, green, purple, pink, orange, and red.
While synthetic diamonds are limited to white, yellow, blue, and pink colors.
According to the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Stones and Minerals, there are several well-known tests that show the difference between them. Including the breath test. Water vapor is not deposited on natural diamonds, while it is little attached to synthetic diamonds.
You can also test raw diamond inclusions with a magnifying glass. If you notice the appearance of carbon cuts, fine white lines. Or any other form of inclusion, this is a synthetic diamond.
There is a buoyancy test, which is suitable for amateurs and is more effective to distinguish. Between synthetic and natural diamonds.
The test is based on placing a diamond in a glass of water. If it floats, it will be synthetic, while the natural diamond remains at the bottom.
Why is the demand for synthetic diamonds increasing?
Industrial diamond uses
Scientific American says the diamond’s goal was not to use in jewelry or to compete with nature, but rather to have industrial applications.
The platform notes that among these industrial goals are obtaining energy, an alternative to materials used in the optical and electronic industries, and reducing the use of natural diamonds in the industry.
She added that industrial diamonds aimed to reduce dependence on their natural counterpart in the industry, which consumes 80% of the produced quantity, while only 20% enters the jewelry industry.
Drill heads are also coated with synthetic diamond to take advantage of its hardness in drilling oil wells and tunnels in hard mountains, and cutting and shaping very hard stones.
Countries that produce the most diamonds
While the “NS Energy Business” website is characterized by the largest producer of natural diamonds in the world, led by Russia, which owns more than 12 mines, and extracted in 2018 about 43 million carats of diamonds.
Botswana, is the second-largest producer of diamonds in the world, according to available statistics. The country’s production was estimated at 23.2 million carats, with a value of $3.6 billion in 2013.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the third-largest producer of diamonds, as it extracted about 16.4 million carats in 2018 and then increased to 19 million carats in 2019.
While Australia produced 14 million carats of diamonds, most of it came from the Argyle mine owned by Rio Tinto, which extracts about 12 million carats of diamonds annually.
Canada’s production witnessed a good jump. After it extracted about 10.6 million carats of diamonds in 2013, at a value of $1.9 billion, production rose to 123 million carats, with a value of about $2.7 billion in 2022.
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