Lab Grown Diamonds

Why in News?

The 2023 Union Budget had special attention on laboratory-grown diamonds (LGD) as the sector has “high employment potential”.

Lab Grown Diamonds (LGDs):

1. Lab-made diamonds are developed from a carbon seed placed in a microwave chamber and superheated into a glowing plasma ball.
2. The process creates particles that crystallize into diamonds in weeks.
3. The only difference between lab-grown diamond and natural diamond is that instead of digging the earth, it is created in a lab under a machine.
4. This tech-based manufacturing directly cuts down the capital and labour-intensive factors of the mined diamond chain and so lab-grown diamonds cost 30-40% cheaper than mined despite being 100% diamond.
5. There are two types of lab-grown diamonds:

• CVD (Chemical Vapour Decomposition)
• HPHT (High Pressure High Temperature)

6. India particularly specialises and leads in the chemical vapour decomposition (CVD) technology that is certified as the purest type of diamonds.
7. According to the report, the Gemmological Institute of America predicted the total annual sales of laboratory diamonds will be more than $100 billion in the not-too-distant future, from about $20 billion today.
8. This sector of the diamond is growing at an annual growth rate of 15-20%.

 

Manufactured processes:

1. Naturally-occurring diamonds take millions of years to form, as they are created when carbon deposits buried within the earth are exposed to extreme heat and pressure. 
2. On the other hand, LGDs are mostly manufactured through two processes, high pressure, high temperature (HPHT) method or Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) method.
3. Both HPHT and CVD methods of growing diamonds, artificially begin with a seed, means a slice of another diamond.
4. In the HPHT method, the seed, along with pure graphite carbon, is exposed to temperatures around 1,500 degrees Celsius and extremely high pressure.
5. In the CVD method, the seed is heated to around 800 degrees Celsius inside a sealed chamber filled with a carbon-rich gas. The gas sticks to the seed, gradually building the diamond.

Comparison between Natural Diamond and LGDs:

1. Visually and chemically, the two are the same but the environmental footprint of a diamond grown in a laboratory is much lesser than that of a naturally-occurring diamond. 
2. According to a report by Diamond Foundry, it takes ten times more energy to extract a natural diamond from the earth than it takes in creating one above the ground, in lab. 
3. Open-pit mining, one of the most common methods of mining naturally-occurring diamonds, involves moving tonnes of earth and rock to extract these precious stones.

Initiatives to Enable the growth of LGDs:

1. India is a global leader in cutting and polishing natural diamonds, but as its resources are becoming scarce, the industry is shifting towards LGDs. 
2. The 2023 Union Budget promises to reduce the basic customs duty on seeds used in the manufacture of lab-grown diamonds in a bid to popularise their production in India, the duty on seeds for rough LGDs will be reduced from 5% to nil.
3. A 5-year research grant will also be provided to one of the Indian Institute of Technologies (IITs) for research and development in the field of LGDs.
4. Ms. Sitharaman also proposed the creation of new tariff lines to help in better identification of a number of products, including synthetic diamonds. 
5. The aim of the move is to help facilitate trade as well as to have clarity on availing concessional import duty.

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