Manufactured Diamonds - Can they Compare?

Manufactured diamonds are becoming more common these days, and people are asking more often whether a diamond is natural or manufactured. Many people confuse the simulated diamond with one that is manufactured, but they are not the same thing. A diamond that is manufactured has the components of a real, natural diamond, but it is man-made in a controlled setting. A diamond that is simulated is made of a different substance, and as the name implies, it is simply made to look like a diamond. The cubic zirconia is an example of this. Manufactured diamonds are real, but how do they compare to diamonds that were formed naturally?

Manufactured diamonds go through a process that has been honed and modified over the years. Carbon is put through a process in a relatively short amount of time that natural diamonds go through over thousands of years. Using vapor, gas, carbon and a pressure process, diamonds are created that are essentially the same thing as those that are mined. This obviously has serious connotations for the companies that profit from diamond mining. Most human rights activists will tell you, however, that relying less on diamond mining and more on manufactured diamonds would have a positive impact. There have been problems with human rights violations in the diamond mining industry.

The drawback that has happened with manufactured diamonds has been that manufacturers could not come up with a purely white diamond, which for all intents and purposes look clear. Diamonds that were manufactured were coming out at best with a yellow hew, and at worst had an actual brown tint. Though yellow diamonds are sold on the market, white diamonds are much more coveted, and the clearer the better. So for a while, diamonds that were manufactured simply couldn't compete with diamonds that were mined.

Improvement of the process for making manufactured diamonds has begun to produce white diamonds. Though the process isn't perfected yet, it is improved enough to make a significant difference. The main problem that still exists is making the white diamonds large enough; the vapor and pressure process tends to make a lot of small diamonds out of the materials used, when ideally they like to produce bigger diamonds to cut down. Over time this problem will probably be successfully addressed as well, and we will start seeing a lot more diamonds that are manufactured sitting in the jewelry store windows. What we will realize in lower prices will make a lot of consumers happy.

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Title:	Manufactured Diamonds - Can they Compare?
Author:	Joy Stoyle
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Manufactured Diamonds - Can they Compare?