Growth of Large Diamond Crystals by Reduction of Magnesium Carbonate with Metallic Sodium

✍ Scribed by Zhengsong Lou; Qianwang Chen; Wei Wang; Yitai Qian; Yufeng Zhang

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 97 KB
• Volume: 115
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0044-8249
• DOI: 10.1002/ange.200351478

✦ Synopsis

Diamond is a material with uniquely attractive physical, thermal, and optical properties, and is used in applications ranging from abrasives, tool coating, bearing surfaces, microelectronics, and optics to corrosion protection. The diamond is grown commercially by using high-pressure and hightemperature, chemical vapor deposition for thin films and shock-wave processes. Alternative routes to diamond preparation include the reduction of CCl 4 by metallic sodium, and hydrothermal process with carbon, water, and metal near 800 8C and at 1.4 Kbar pressure. Recently, the synthesis of diamond-structured carbon from silicon carbide in chlorinecontaining gases at temperatures not exceeding 1000 8C was also achieved. Herein we report the synthesis of high-purity cubic diamond particles by the reduction of magnesium carbonate with metallic sodium at a temperature as low as 500 8C.

The X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern of a powder sample after washing with HClO 4 was shown in Figure . The