Diamonds are created at ambient pressure

2024/04/24 Etxebeste Aduriz, Egoitz - Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Fisika
• Kimika

They have managed to create ambient pressure diamonds with a liquid metal alloy and a vacuum system. This has broken the current paradigm, as extreme pressures and temperatures for diamond formation were considered essential. It's been published in the journal Nature.

Diamonds are usually produced at a pressure of 5-6 gigapascals (1 GP approx. 10,000 atm) and at temperatures between 1,300 and 1,600 °C. Now, however, they have managed to create ambient pressure diamonds (1 atm) and 1025 °C by a liquid metal alloy made up of gallium, iron, nickel and silicon. They have achieved this through a cold-wall vacuum system designed by researchers and without seed particles commonly used to produce diamonds. The researchers found that applying this liquid metal alloy under these conditions to methane and hydrogen produces diamonds on the alloy surface.

As the researchers have explained, this discovery can give many possibilities to develop new diamond generation methods, as well as many other basic research.