The world is changing, but diamonds are still pretty much everyone’s best friend. They’re just much, much harder—and more expensive—to find. However, new X-Ray technology developed in Germany is capable of finding diamonds located even in deep rock, without having to break it open.
Traditional techniques used to find diamonds can only detect the precious stones that are very close to the ore’s surface, and normally they can only be detected if the rock is first broken up. According to the Fraunhofer Institute, who developed the new X-Ray process in their Development Center for X-Ray Technology, breaking up igneous rock requires an enormous amount of energy and therefore a large amount of money. Their process, by contrast, can both locate diamonds without breaking the rock at all—as well as detect diamonds deeper than the ore’s surface.
The Institute’s demonstration model is capable of detecting diamonds that are several hundredths of an inch, up to grains that are almost two inches. Their process produces two images of the same object, each using different X-Ray spectra. After these images are developed, the Institute’s unique algorithm filters data from each image, in effect distinguishing the normal kimberlite rock from diamond.
According to their press release, the technology is not limited to diamonds: it’s “eagle eye could even find the highly coveted rare earths that are concealed in old cellphones, computers, and television sets to utilize them.”
In other words, the Institute’s X-Ray technology is capable of increasing the effectiveness of any form of mining—but, we might as well start with the good stuff. Diamonds are just so shiny .
Source Discovery
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