• Question: if put coal in under a hydraulic press, would it make diamonds?

    Asked by MCKingferdsta to Elliot, Hazel, Thomas on 23 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Elliot Jokl

      Elliot Jokl answered on 23 Jun 2016:

      Thanks for the question!

      Yes and no – The principal behind what you are thinking is right! Diamonds form when carbon is exposed to high temperatures and pressures, and so you can make synthetic diamonds by trying to recreate that process with a press. But the machines that they use to do this are a bit more complex, so making diamonds probably isn’t quite as simple as mashing coal with a press.

      If you are interested, you can read a bit more about the different technologies here:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_diamond#High_pressure.2C_high_temperature

    • Photo: Thomas Biggans

      Thomas Biggans answered on 23 Jun 2016:

      We might be able to get a hydraulic press that provides enough pressure to form diamonds out of carbon but we also need alot of heat too (like 1000 degrees). These conditions of high pressure temperature make it possible for the carbon to form the crystal structure that makes it a diamond.

      So diamonds are crystals made out of pure carbon, now although coal has carbon its also got alot of other elements like hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur, arsenic, selenium and mercury which get in the way of the carbon forming the crystal of just itself which makes it difficult to get a diamond out of coal. Although superman seemed to figure out how to do it with his hands but he didn’t tell the rest of us :(.

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