Is it possible to make diamonds by pressurizing coal?

Question

I read H.G. Wells's short story "The Diamond Maker" (http://www.shortstoryarchive.com/w/diamond_maker.html), about a guy that makes diamonds by putting coal and dynamite in a steel container over a fire and setting off the dynamite.

Provided that you had the steel cylinder that could take the pressure, would it be possible to make diamonds this way?

Answer 1

Any substance with carbon in it can be used to make diamonds, whether it's coal, graphite, or even ashes from human remains

Answer 2

No it is not possible. Natural diamonds are formed from free carbon molecules in the magma being subjected to the required temperature/pressure conditions and ABSOLUTELY NOT from volcanic activity on coal - coal is far too impure, even at its best it is only about 80% carbon. The form of carbon used for the High Pressure High Temperature production of diamonds is chemically pure graphite (even in the case of the firm that makes diamonds from human remains the carbon has to be converted to graphite first). The low pressure method uses molecular carbon produced from the decomposition of a gas (usually methane) to provide a diamond coating on a "seed" of some type.

I do wish that this myth that diamonds come from coal would go away along with the fallacy that diamonds took millions of years to form. The rock in which they are found is millions of years old and so are the diamonds but their formation took a matter of hours while the conditions were perfect. In fact about as long as it takes to make diamonds in a laboratory.

Answer 3

Pressurized coal is the traditional way in which diamonds occur in nature-The technique that you described sounds possible in theory but I have not heard of this process being done on a large commercial scale.

Answer 4

Coal isn't the method of choice because of the impurities as well as the volatiles in it.  A purer choice is inorganic graphite.

Also, that method wouldn't work because there are 3 parts to the equation - temperature, pressure, and time.  The dynamite blast would yield a diamond powder if by some chance it worked.

Answer 5

Absolutely, and several companies have successfully created synthetic diamonds.  Wikipedia has a good article about it.  The only problem is that coal bricks have many impurities and would not produce a good diamond crystal.  That is why most methods to make diamonds start with graphite, the grade of coal with the greatest carbon content.

Answer 6

Yes, and some people's butts are so tight that if you stuck a lump of coal inside, two weeks later, you'd have a diamond.