Re: Diamond from methane gas

Date: Tue Jun 8 12:24:56 1999
Posted By: Dan Berger, Faculty Chemistry/Science, Bluffton College
Area of science: Chemistry
ID: 928557232.Ch

Message:

Diamond from methane gas

Why do some scientists say that methane gas can be used to grow diamond films? Is it possible to make diamonds from methane gas?

Any source of carbon, including methane, can be used to make diamonds, which are (after all) pure elemental carbon. Diamonds for abrasive applications are commonly made from cheaper forms of carbon by General Electric's patented process (now administered by Novatek), described in this article in Nature v. 176, pp. 51-54 (1955). The question is whether the diamonds so produced are cheaper than mined diamonds. Diamonds made from methane would not be cheap, because methane is not a very concentrated source of carbon.

However, diamond films need not be very substantial; they can be very thin and still be useful as hard surfaces for various high-wear applications. People have been playing with the idea for years, and beginning in about 1990 it became apparent that it is ridiculously easy to lay down a film of diamond under the right conditions; one can even use an oxyacetylene torch!

The chemical mechanism involved was solved in a beautiful piece of work by Timothy Chen, then at Harvard University; it was published in Science in about 1994.

	Dan Berger
	Bluffton College
	http://cs.bluffton.edu/~berger

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