Editor’s Note
This article explores the surprising industrial journey of diamonds, revealing that the vast majority are used not for jewelry but for tools and technology. It highlights how demand for these industrial-grade stones is reshaping the sector.
There is more diamond on a saw than on an engagement ring! And that’s no joke… Only 20% of natural diamonds are used in jewelry. The remaining 80% – opaque, deformed, and pitted – are recycled into industry. Typically ground into powder, they are used to make abrasive and cutting tools. But not only that. For the past five years, the proliferation of their use, naturally accompanied by rising demand, has revolutionized the sector. Today, over 95% of these stones reserved for industry are synthesized in the laboratory by a small handful of companies, including two in Switzerland.
For four generations, the Ziemer family has been in diamonds. Frank Ziemer’s great-grandfather owned a diamond cutting workshop in Germany, while he is the first in the lineage to venture into synthetic manufacturing. Starting in 2014, after seven long years of research and development efforts to establish 100% “in-house” production. Today, the company Ziemer Swiss Diamond Art AG, based in the canton of Bern, manufactures its diamonds in its own machines using its own processes, thanks to HPHT (High Pressure High Temperature) technology. This involves fusing carbon with metals and then subjecting this mixture to high pressures and high temperatures.
The synthesized stones, the largest of which are 3.5 carats, are intended for companies specializing in precision mechanics as well as those at the forefront of microtechnology and life sciences. The sophisticated tools and equipment of these companies are studded with diamond to ensure their quality, thanks to its hardness and conductivity.
Germany is the company’s primary market, and it also works with the United States, Canada, Japan, India, and China. According to Frank Ziemer, synthetic is the stone of the future:
While Frank Ziemer conquers the HPHT diamond market, Christophe Provent, founder of NeoCoat, has been focusing since 2013 on the CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition) diamond market. This chemist uses this technique to create diamond layer by layer by injecting precursor gases into silica under pressure, subsequently ionized using a microwave discharge. Whether you drink a glass of water, check the time on a watch, or take a plane, you are surrounded by CVD diamonds. They coat many surfaces, including those of electrodes that treat water, house windows, certain watch gear parts, but also aircraft surfaces to make them more resistant.
Based in La Chaux-de-Fonds, the company NeoCoat also markets machines so that tool manufacturers can synthesize their own diamond coatings. Each year, the industry consumes nearly 500 million carats of diamond compared to only 20 million for jewelry. Considering the development of new sectors interested in this material and the stagnation of the production pipeline, specialists predict a “diamond peak” in 2030.