German physicists have developed a method to obtain nanodiamonds from plastic using laser pulses.
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These diamond particles are now in demand in medicine, electronics, materials science, chemistry and other fields of economics.
It is worth noting that leading laboratories around the world had previously succeeded in obtaining diamonds from plastic using powerful laser pulses. However, scientists were only able to observe them for a very short time, as the diamonds disintegrated rapidly after the experiment ended.
In the new study, powerful laser pulses were directed at the plastic, creating a pressure of approximately 100 gigapascals (about a million times greater than normal atmospheric pressure). The temperature reached approximately 3700 degrees Celsius. Under these extreme conditions, the material's structure changed, and the carbon in the plastic transformed into microscopic diamond crystals.
But how could they be preserved? The shock wave caused the resulting nanodiamonds to accelerate to speeds exceeding 10 kilometers per second. Upon impact with a hard surface, they would have shattered almost instantly. Scientists developed a special trap that managed to protect almost all of the resulting diamond crystals.
According to the researchers' estimates, each laser pulse generated approximately 10 trillion diamond nanoparticles. However, due to their extremely small size, their total mass remains negligible.
MmThanks to its exceptional hardness, nanodiamonds have long been used in grinding and polishing materials. But they are also in demand in more complex technologies, including quantum sensors, contrast materials for MRI, and catalysts for chemical reactions.
The unique technology is still in the laboratory stage. For industrial application, it is necessary to significantly increase the production of the finished product and assess the energy consumption in production.
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