Manufacturing Synthetic Diamonds
The mineral Pyrophyllite has played an integral part in the process of manufacturing synthetic diamonds ever since their discovery in 1954. Wonderstone, in particular, has been the product of choice because of the properties of thermal and electrical insulation, thermal shock resistance and high compressive strength under the extreme operating conditions (1400 ºC, 60 kbar).
Wonderstone is easily machined with standard machine tools and has the appropriate frictional and extrusion characteristics to form a gasket either between the die cavity and the two ramming punches in a belt die set or between the anvils in multi-anvil systems such as cubic presses.
Wonderstone Ltd. has worked hard to accommodate the special needs of it’s clients by initially machining the special shapes, at it’s mine in South Africa, to the high tolerances required and has more recently formed the shapes via the pressed powder route. These are exported to synthetic diamond, polycrystalline diamond and cubic boron nitride manufacturers in the UK, USA and Japan.