Comparison of diamond and diamond like carbon ?

Question

I found a worrying web page about the mechanical damage from ingested diamond :

http://www.nanomedicine.com/NMIIA/15.1.1.htm

I have just bought a Remington shaver which has diamond like carbon (DLC) coated cutters and on the box it says that these are 4 times harder than steel ones, but now I am concerned that this material may wear off the cutters and I may inadvertently ingest the fragments. How does DLC compare with diamond itself in terms of hardness and could it cause the same devastating effects that diamond can according to the link above ?

p.s. On this MSDS :

http://www.cutallsuperabrasives.com/pdf/MSDSMicron.pdf

it says that diamond is NOT hazardous. Which should I believe ?

Answer 1

I would believe the second version.

For many years industry has used diamond dust for cutting and drilling, in fact I have a diamond disc cutter that I used for cutting my paving stones when I laid them, i also have a small one that i used to cut the tiles for my kitchen wall.

Both of these appliances are available in great numbers for anybody who wants to buy one and they are very cheap.

I believe if there was the danger that the article says with respect to diamond dust, it would have been banned by now , as has lead in paint and petrol and asbestos which has been shown to have the bad effect on your lungs.

All forms of dust are harder than the lining of your lungs and are to be avoided by using masks whilst making dust.

But carbon is in your body in large amounts and will not harm you if you eat it.

If fact you can be fed carbon in hospital to absorb some poisons you may have eaten.

Water is filtered through carbon filters and so is air so carbon itself is harmless.

I would also suggest that Remington is trying to baffle you with science.

The best way to make the cutting edge of steel much harder is to heat it up and dip it in carbon.

The carbon soaks in to the surface of the steel and makes the surface harder.

This is called case hardening as it only makes the case [surface] of the steel hard and not the whole lump of steel.

This has been used for a hundred years and is nothing new.

I would suggest that this is nothing more than Remington trying to blind you with science which is total rubbish, which is what a lot of advertisers do these days.

In any case , rest assured you have got NO diamond in your shavers it is just Remington trying to be clever which annoys me because all the advertising these days seem to think that if they make up a chemical name people will be impressed and buy one, but it is really all lies.

We need a shake up in the advertising industry.