High pressure diamond synthesis

At high pressures, diamond is the stable form of carbon, since it has a higher density than graphite (3.51 vs 2.26 g/cm3). The industrial synthesis of diamond from graphite or other forms of carbon is carried out at about 100,000 atm and 2000°C. 

Lack introduced in a Fig. l,a and l,b of flow diagrams of processing of a stuff by high pressure at synthesis of diamonds is the small power stroke - from 1 up to 2 mms, and also impossibility of processing of materials in gaseousness. Similar lacks have the schemes of synthesis of stuffs, introduced in activity [4] in a Fig. 1. 

Other Industrial Applications. High pressures are used industrially for many other specialized appHcations. Apart from mechanical uses in which hydrauhc pressure is used to supply power or to generate Hquid jets for mining minerals or cutting metal sheets and fabrics, most of these other operations are batch processes. Eor example, metallurgical appHcations include isostatic compaction, hot isostatic compaction (HIP), and the hydrostatic extmsion of metals. Other appHcations such as the hydrothermal synthesis of quartz (see Silica, synthetic quartz crystals), or the synthesis of industrial diamonds involve changing the phase of a substance under pressure. In the case of the synthesis of diamonds, conditions of 6 GPa (870,000 psi) and 1500°C are used (see Carbon, diamond, synthetic). 

Diamonds also occur in meteorites, probably as a result of high pressures produced dynamically by impact (10,11). The shock or explosive mode of synthesis is a viable process for fine diamond powders of both the cubic and hexagonal (lonsdaleite) polymorphs (12) naturally or otherwise. Some diamonds in space appear to have formed by processes more closely related to the low pressure chemical vapor deposition processes described later (see... 

In the attempt at diamond synthesis (4), much unsuccesshil effort was devoted to processes that deposited carbon at low, graphite-stable pressures. Many chemical reactions Hberating free carbon were studied at pressures then available. New high pressure apparatus was painstakingly buHt, tested, analy2ed, rebuilt, and sometimes discarded. It was generally beheved that diamond would be more likely to form at thermodynamically stable pressures. 

Static Pressure Synthesis. Diamond can form direcdy from graphite at pressures of about 13 GPa (130 kbar) and higher at temperatures of about 3300—4300 K (7). No catalyst is needed. The transformation is carried out in a static high pressure apparatus in which the sample is heated by the discharge current from a capacitor. Diamond forms in a few milliseconds and is recovered in the form of polycrystalline lumps. From this work, and studies of graphite vaporization/melting, the triple point of diamond, graphite, and molten carbon is estimated to He at 13 GPa and 5000 K (Fig. 1)... 

The synthesis of diamond is the most famous high-pressure and high-temperature industrial process, and vast quantities of this material are produced using modem industrial technology. The small synthetic crystals obtained are principally used for cutting tools and abrasives. 

From a thermodynamic point of view, the transformation of graphite is accessible with the available experimental apparatuses, but it is kinetically impossible. Geological times, hundreds of years, are required for spontaneous formation of diamond in appropriate conditions, and kinetic factors prevent the observation of the reaction in any practical time scale. H. T. Hall has demonstrated that for graphite diamond conversion, carbon-carbon bonds must be broken in a solvent and on December 1954 realized the first synthesis of diamond, at approximately 2000 K and 10 GPa, in molten troilite (FeS) solvent, using a belt-type high-pressure-high-temperature apparatus [516-519]. Since then, many substances, minerals, and transition metals, in particular, have been... 

Very recently, Solozhenko [540] reported the high-pressure-high-temperature synthesis of cubic BC2N with in situ control of the reaction by x-ray diffraction measurement. The first high-density product has been obtained in a laser-heated diamond anvil cell (DAC). The starting material was g-BC N, prepared... 

With the technical development achieved in the last 30 years, pressure has become a common variable in several chemical and biochemical laboratories. In addition to temperature, concentration, pH, solvent, ionic strength, etc., it helps provide a better understanding of structures and reactions in chemical, biochemical, catalytic-mechanistic studies and industrial applications. Two of the first industrial examples of the effect of pressure on reactions are the Haber process for the synthesis of ammonia and the conversion of carbon to diamond. The production of NH3 and synthetic diamonds illustrate completely different fields of use of high pressures the first application concerns reactions involving pressurized gases and the second deals with the effect of very high hydrostatic pressure on chemical reactions. High pressure analytical techniques have been developed for the majority of the physicochemical methods (spectroscopies e. g. NMR, IR, UV-visible and electrochemistry, flow methods, etc.). 

Recently, diamond synthesis has been successfully performed under high-temperature, high-pressure conditions in a system using kimberlite powder, various carbonates, sulphates or water as the solvent [13], [14]. Higher pressure and temperature conditions are required in a non-metallic solution than in a metallic solution, and the crystals obtained are mainly simple octahedral, differing from those observed in crystals grown from metallic solutions. Crystals synthesized in a non-metallic solution show the same characteristics as natural diamond Tracht. These observations indicate that the solvent components have a definitive effect upon surface reconstruction, and thus on the morphology of the crystals. 

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