Different Uses of Diamonds in Modern Industry

Starting in the late 19th century, diamonds became indispensable to industry. Henry Ford, famous as an American automobile magnate was the first to reveal the contemporary industrial uses of the stone. He was known to provide grants for research into the stone’s applications for the manufacturing sector, and especially as a low-cost abrasive. Known as the automobile production center of the United States of America, the Detroit area actually became a hub for dealers of diamond manufacturing and mining tools.

Following the lead provided by the automotive sector, the aircraft industry became an avid user of diamond-based products. Diamonds used for industrial applications are almost always a lower grade than those found in the gemstone market, say; however they still retain the same properties of durability and hardness. Diamond tools last for a whole lot longer than those made from other sources and offer a pretty-much unbeatable precision for the act of cutting other substances. Tools made from industrial diamonds are used in the optical and mirror manufacturing fields as well as in oil and gas drilling endeavors.

In the textile industry, though, devices made from diamonds are used for cutting patterns. In medicine, cutting instruments made from diamonds are used to slice bone and tissue precisely and cleanly. The construction industry uses diamond tools in the grinding and cutting of concrete and pavement.

What are diamonds? Diamonds are actually chains of carbon. Carbon is one of the most common substances found on the planet. In one form it is simple graphite, like what is used in pencils, however, in its crystallized form, it takes has a different appearance than diamond. On the scale that mineralogists use to measure the hardness of diamonds, they rate ten on a scale of one to ten. Diamonds are also measured in carats, this is the standard unit of measurement for gemstones. One carat is equal to one-fifth of a gram. The carat can further be divided into points based on a scale of 100. One of the reasons diamonds are so prized is because the light they absorb is reflected directly back outward, if the stone has been properly cut. The unusual crystal structure of the particular gem allows the high degree of refractability.

Diamonds, it might be added, are also excellent conductors of electrical current, due to their structure, which can be described as octahedron. That is to say, there are two four-sided pyramids of carbon chains inside, which meet one another at the bases. Cubes or dodacahedrons (a twelve-sided shape) are also found within the stone; and some of the time, small triangular pockets called trigons can be observed.