They’re at the top of the toughness scale and are super resistant, but can diamonds melt?
Diamonds can’t technically ‘melt’ but they can be transformed into a liquid or vaporous state. There are specific requirements for the application of pressure and heat, with intense pressures forcing the carbon in the diamond to liquify.
Read on to learn more about the composition of diamonds and the stress they can withstand.
Strength and Beauty
Diamonds are the most popular jewel in the world. They’re famed for their beauty, clarity, and super-high resistance to damage.
In fact, they top the Mohs scale, a range used to determine the hardness of a material. This means they’re near-impossible to scratch or cleave.
They can be broken of course, but it takes a severe impact to do so.
When it comes to the question of melting a diamond, science becomes a massive factor. When incredible heat is applied to a diamond, it transforms into graphite.
That essentially means that what you’re melting is no longer diamond, but another element entirely. These temperatures are way over seven thousand Fahrenheit, a staggeringly-high number.
However, a diamond can be transitioned through various states, passing from liquid to vapor. The circumstances in which this occurs are impossible to replicate in everyday life, though.
In 2006, scientists discovered a way to liquefy diamonds. They subjected tiny particles of a diamond to intense and extremely overwhelming magnetic fields.
They applied enormous pressure to the diamond, some ten million times the normal atmospheric pressure. Through the use of a one-of-a-kind x-ray generator, they launched ‘plates’ at the diamond.
These plates traveled at dizzying speeds, around twenty-one miles per second. The end result was the diamond liquefying into a puddle.
Once the atmospheric pressure had been returned to normal levels, the diamond solidified again.
Using this knowledge, scientists have proposed that there may be oceans of liquid diamond on planets like Neptune and Uranus. They have an abundance of carbon and intense pressure in their atmospheres.
Carbon is, of course, what makes up diamonds.
Melting Money
The concept of melting a diamond is reserved strictly for scientific purposes. If you were to melt a high-value diamond, it would almost certainly lose nearly all of its worth.
After all, it’s the color, shape, and cut of a diamond that can lead to it being worth tens of millions of dollars.
There are dozens of examples of these super-valuable diamonds all around the world. History is studded with stories of fine jewels, and their legacies trackback thousands of years.
One of the most iconic diamonds is the Hope Diamond. It has a well-known legacy and has been accused of being a cursed jewel.
Today, it resides in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC. The diamond itself is enormous and extremely valuable, being worth around a quarter of a billion dollars.
However, the top of the pile was reserved for the Cullinan Diamond, worth almost two billion dollars. The Cullinan was the largest gem-quality diamond ever found in history.
It was uncovered in a mine in South Africa and weighed around 1.3 pounds.
The stone was found in 1905 and within a few decades, it had entered the possession of King Edward VII. He ordered the finest diamond cutters in the world to prepare the stone to perfection.
Today, the Cullinan has all but disappeared. It was cut into one hundred and nine separate stones, still collectively worth millions of dollars.
The ‘Star of Africa I’ is the largest stone cut from the Cullinan and can now be found in the Tower of London. It’s officially part of the British Crown Jewels.
Also in the British Crown Jewels is the Koh-i-Noor, another enormous diamond. This Indian gem was taken from a mine thousands of years ago and wound up in England in the 19th Century.
Its exact value is unknown but it’s estimated to be worth anything up to half a billion dollars. It’s considered one of the most important jewels in the world, though.
Pound for pound, there is nothing on the planet more valuable than jewels. They command such dramatically high prices owing to their rarity, like many other luxurious possessions.
While you can get smaller, lower-quality jewels for a few hundred dollars, these super-gems may be out of reach. In 2020, the cost-per-carat of a diamond was as high as sixteen thousand dollars.