DEAD DIAMONDS

No one can ever imagine the pain of losing a loved one, the pain is indescribable. That pain is felt by loved ones every 1.80 seconds. Every year 56 million people die, leaving behind family and friends to bury, cremate, or freeze them. With our ever-changing society innovators have found a new way to preserve the dead. Now you can turn your Nana into the diamond, you already knew she was.

A Swiss company, named Algordanza has developed an innovative technology that transforms human remains into diamonds. Rinaldo Willy, the company’s founder and CEO, credits himself with coming up with the idea over a decade ago. His attempts to mimic the same carbon baking and compression process that occurs beneath the Earth’s mantle under extreme temperatures over the course of millions to billions of years have been successful. He has been able to create a technology that artificially creates the same process using the cremated remains of humans.

The process is similar to one used to make synthetic diamonds. It starts by treating the remains with chemicals, to remove the usable carbon elements. The substance is then heated and turned into graphite an allotrope made exclusively of carbon like diamonds, but has a lower density and differing molecular bonds. The graphite is then placed in a machine which subjects it to a high pressure, high temperature environment similar to the Earth’s mantle. Temperatures as high as 2,500 degrees Celsius combine with forces over 870,000 pounds per square inch causing carbon atoms to bond, creating a diamond in as little as a few weeks.

Stone coloring is dependent on the specific combination of trace elements found in the remains, giving each diamond its own unique hue. Willy does not add any additives to the ashes to affect the outcome because he “believes in no manipulations” stating that “As soon as you have additives, there’s something in the diamond that doesn’t belong.”

Willy’s work has been praised for being able to provide solace to grieving loved ones. So, if you are looking for an alternative to always remember the ones you love, how about a diamond ring or a pendant kept close to you heart.

By: Astrid Johnson – Associate Editor of Business, Technology, and Medicine

Photo Credit: Macroscopic Solutions. via flickr.com cc

Sources used:

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/where-the-dead-become-diamonds/381038/ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/startup-claims-turn-dead-diamonds-180949875/?no-ist /

http://www.npr.org/2014/01/19/263128098/swiss-company-compresses-cremation-ashes-into-diamonds