Is turning ashes into diamonds technically feasible and legitimate?

[MRBXXXFVVS1]

Is turning ashes into diamonds technically feasible and legitimate? I've read the previous threads on this, but curious if perhaps not today, this can be done sometime in the future?

If so, would this be something you'd consider? Personally, I think it would be cool, but DH thinks it's creepy!

 

[Cerulean]

I think it’s totally cool and I would do it in a heartbeat for my pets or loved ones.

I’ve always thought it was terribly romantic, but I also love momento mori jewelry, including the really weird ones with things like little braids of hair!

 

[Wink]

When these first started being sold, most of us in the trade were of the belief that there was no way to actually do it. I do not know about doing it with today's technology, but I remain skeptical.

Perhaps our resident educational specialist @John Pollard can tell us if things have changed.

Wink

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

It is now possible. The first companies were cheats - we called one out in this forum who posted photos of one of the early HPHT producers factory. He saw the thread and declared that they had no relationship with said company. Someone may remember or find the thread?
But I was involved with one of Branko's webinars a few months back and they had a guy as a co panellist from Switzerland. He is the real deal and has agent funeral services around the world.
So yes, it can be done.
I have sent Branko an email to request the company name.

 

[Wink]

The first companies were cheats

I remember that thread now. The photo of the factory cooked the goose of the cheater!

I am only a little surprised that it is now possible, and am looking forward to seeing some details.

Thank you.

 

[DejaWiz]

But I was involved with one of Branko's webinars a few months back and they had a guy as a co panellist from Switzerland. He is the real deal and has agent funeral services around the world.

This it?

Swiss Cremation Diamonds from Ashes | LONITÉ™

Swiss company LONITÉ™ turns human hair & cremation ashes into GIA certified stunnning diamonds, Cremation diamonds cost from only $ 1400! Create a customized memorial diamond from your loved one and keep the memory forever.

www.lonite.com

 

[HGar]

My Dad passed last December and we were given a brochure for a company in Switzerland that does this - it was interesting to see that they quoted a timeframe of something like 12mths for the process.

 

[John Pollard]

The fact that it's possible shouldn't be taken as a blanket endorsement. There have been fakes and frauds claiming to do this for decades.

I liken any casual claims to claims of "sustainable." Most LGD producers' reactors, which require enormous energy, are powered by the burning of fossil fuels because those factories are in areas with no hydroelectric power. Those LGDs are not green, eco-friendly or sustainable - yet LGD advertisements frequently invoke those terms.

Teeth: A handful of producers do have sustainable productions. SCS Global has developed a certification process for LGD (and natural diamond producers). WD Diamonds and Foundry were the first two LGD operations to become certified. There may be others going through the process. And Lightbox diamonds - nee Element 6 - established their space-age factory in Oregon, specifically to harness hydro.

What next? We are looking at the possibility of technology capable of bridging the gap between DAC CO2 (carbon capture) and LGD input. Meaning - removing atmospheric pollution and converting elements of it to hydrocarbon gas capable of use in CVD. Like "cremation diamonds" this hasn't been possible before. But two award winning entrepreneurs claim to have developed that IP. One is a 40 Under 40 award winner with a Harvard MBA & Holy Cross BA. The other created Britain’s greenest energy company, received the Order of the British Empire from HRM Queen Elizabeth II and is a well known pioneer. Yep, I'm following with interest.

Covered in this Blog post (there is a link to discussion on PS at the end).

 

[lovedogs]

This it?

Swiss Cremation Diamonds from Ashes | LONITÉ™

Swiss company LONITÉ™ turns human hair & cremation ashes into GIA certified stunnning diamonds, Cremation diamonds cost from only $ 1400! Create a customized memorial diamond from your loved one and keep the memory forever.

www.lonite.com

Super interesting!

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

I for one love this idea and i was so disappointed to read all the threads calling it out as fakes
I can't remenber what i saw at the funneral directors when we were burying mum because she wasn't being cremated but it was a very old and respected firm (the funeral directors) they had a display outside an office about menorial jewlery and keep sakes

I hope this Switzerland place is the real deal

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

This it?

Swiss Cremation Diamonds from Ashes | LONITÉ™

Swiss company LONITÉ™ turns human hair & cremation ashes into GIA certified stunnning diamonds, Cremation diamonds cost from only $ 1400! Create a customized memorial diamond from your loved one and keep the memory forever.

www.lonite.com

I remember seeing a price somewhere starting at 3K (perhaps NZ money? But i have no idea where i saw it )

 

[lovedogs]

I just spent a while looking at the (supposedly) more reputable companies doing this. Wow. The diamonds are expensive and take time to make, so it would be insanely heartbreaking if it weren't legit. That said, many of the companies I was looking at seem very reputable, but it's always hard to verify stuff like this

 

[lovedogs]

Edited to add that I would consider this for my beloved pup who is dying. But it would take a bunch of research into the absolute best company

 

[Cerulean]

Edited to add that I would consider this for my beloved pup who is dying. But it would take a bunch of research into the absolute best company

@lovedogs i would love to hear about it if you decide to pursue this. My first thought was to do this for my cat who is getting up there in years and has been with me through everything.

So sorry about your doggie. Hugs to you as a fellow pet parent!

 

[lovedogs]

@lovedogs i would love to hear about it if you decide to pursue this. My first thought was to do this for my cat who is getting up there in years and has been with me through everything.

So sorry about your doggie. Hugs to you as a fellow pet parent!

I'll let you know! No one knows how long she will end up living (shes not even 3 years old but has an extremely rare condition). So I hope she lives for much longer, but no one can predict one way or the other. But definitely something I'll consider, along with other memorial stuff (I really like some of the blown glass work that incorporates ashes). Sorry for the derailment!

 

[maryjane04]

I thought about this when my old dog passed away 4 years ago. It is extremely expensive in Australia and the full time uni student in me could not afford it.

Off the top of my head it was something like $3000 AUD for melee sized diamonds (you can get them in different colours - white, amber, greenish yellow, red, blue).

 

[lovedogs]

prices in USD from Lonite

The cheapest one is the "amber color", chart below



Most expensive is colorless


Blue


Red


Greenish yellow

 

[lovedogs]

More prices from other companies.

 

[maryjane04]

@lovedogs I think these other companies are actually quite new. LifeGem was probably the only one around when I was looking years ago. And their prices reflect what I remember too.

 

[LilAlex]

Didn't read all the posts but diamonds are of course carbon. Just carbon. Mammalian ash is all kinds of stuff -- and I'm not even sure how much is carbon since so much of that must get burned to CO2 and disappear. But you have pounds of calcium and phosphorus in your bones and teeth and I bet that accounts for most of the ash. Also lots of potassium and chlorine in your cell and some sodium, too. They stay behind when you turn tissue to ash.

So you really can't make a diamond, per se, out of a loved one's ashes. I bet you can treat it a million ways and extract some carbon from the ash (leaving the more abundant elements behind) and mix it with other carbon and pretend that it is your loved one...but not really.

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

Different company and I have no idea if they are trustworthy or not.
I have asked Frank Ripka to join this thread - hope he will.
He is very knowledgeable and dispelled all my previous disbeliefs.
"Frank Ripka (left) is a graduate industrial engineer with a focus on production technology and mechanical engineering. At the same time, he is a trained tool mechanic. After completing his studies at the TU Berlin and a scholarship at the Vienna University of Technology, Mr. Ripka worked independently in the fields of ERP software, simulation studies and production technology. After several years as Head of Controlling in an international group, he took a stake in ALGORDANZA AG in 2007 and has been responsible for production there ever since. Since 2016, Mr. Ripka has been Managing Director of ALGORDANZA Austria."

Beautiful Diamonds from Ashes or Hair by ALGORDANZA™

Memorial Diamonds from ashes or hair carry the love and memories of a loved one that has passed away.

www.algordanza.com

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

prices in USD from Lonite

The cheapest one is the "amber color", chart below



Most expensive is colorless


Blue


Red


Greenish yellow

Ouch to those prices but added on to the cost of a funeral it might not seen so much
when i looked they were mostly blue diamonds because of boron (?)

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

prices in USD from Lonite

The cheapest one is the "amber color", chart below



Most expensive is colorless


Blue


Red


Greenish yellow

On the web site they only seem to talk about human ashes

 

[lovedogs]

On the web site they only seem to talk about human ashes

Yeah. Most of them seem to have a page where they say that pet ashes can be used as well (since carbon is carbon). But it does seem largely marketed to human remains, likely due to the cost.

 

[CMN]

Following this with interest.

 

[denverappraiser]

The first step of making a diamond is to distill the source material to get some carbon. They can extract it from pretty much anything that has carbon in it ranging from a handful of hair to the air. They then make the chemical soup that they use to grow the diamond. The details vary from company to company and with the growing technique they use. CVD starts as a gas, for example.

As is pointed out above, ashes don't contain all that much residual carbon, but it's more than zero. I've heard it's something like 1%. Cremains are mostly made of bone, and bone is mostly calcium phosphate and calcium carbonate. There's your carbon. The companies say that they can and do supplement it with carbon from other sources if needed. That's a linguistic trick that makes the whole thing relatively easy. If they can get a single atom out of Fido's ashes, they've complied with the contract. Tracking the provenance of individual atoms is tricky, to say the least, but if they are careful to keep their samples separate it's not completely impossible. Do they do it? Who knows? There has been a substantial amount of questionable activity in this industry and the records are decidedly opaque. It is, theoretically, possible.

 

[AprilBaby]

I’ve been holding my dads ashes for 21 years. Does it have to be fresh ash or can it be old? I would consider doing it under the right circumstances.

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

On other threads what gave me cause for concern was what happens to the excess rough
How much of your loved one is dust on the floor swept up into the bin ?
But the way @denverappraiser explains it maybe not so much (an acceptance amount of b*gger all to begin with)

 

[Frank Ripka]

Hello to all and sorry for my late reply...

Short intro: I am one of the owners of Algordanza, a Swiss Company which has been creating memorial diamonds for +16 years; and as Garry said, responsible for all technical processes in our labs. We are growing diamonds, using HPHT-(toroid-)technology. Indeed the gathering and purifying of the carbon(-source) is challenging. In some cases it includes the detour to transform it into CO/CO2 and back. Which is a time/money-consuming but sometimes necessary process. Contrary to all our competitors our labs are open to any party (private, funeral managers, gemmologists and media) which is interested in our service. As we are head of our own presses (in contrast to some of the companies mentioned above) we are also able to offer uncut diamonds with its uniquely grown facets. We are using neither CVD nor big "chinese type" presses where you can grow dozens of diamonds in one run but use custom-made smaller presses (... well their weight is +18tons).

We are responsible for a very special service for families who desire a very individual piece of remembrance and therefore take utmost care and respect in any step of our process. Please be assured: as a member of numerours national and international funeral organisations we do not and will not sweep any cremated remains into a bin. As we own a (forest) cementry in the Alps we are able and willing to follow all rules, laws and ethics of a funeral organisation... As stated above: we are open to any visitor - come and see.

In regard of the discussion of human vs. animal cremated remains: the process is (technical spoken) identical. Due to our respect towards human life we (again in contrast to our competitors) do not offer and mix human and animal processes on/in our systems and solely offer our service for humans only. Our partner for animals is https://www.semperfides.eu which uses different HPHT-presses and is focussed memorial diamonds from animals (hair, feathers, cremated remains etc.).

Again sorry for this long post but it is a sensitive - and complex - topic. If you have any questions or need some more information on the service/process/technical matters, please feel free to contact me here (on my new account) or via mail: [email protected].

All the best to you, Frank

 

[AprilBaby]

Hello to all and sorry for my late reply...

Short intro: I am one of the owners of Algordanza, a Swiss Company which has been creating memorial diamonds for +16 years; and as Garry said, responsible for all technical processes in our labs. We are growing diamonds, using HPHT-(toroid-)technology. Indeed the gathering and purifying of the carbon(-source) is challenging. In some cases it includes the detour to transform it into CO/CO2 and back. Which is a time/money-consuming but sometimes necessary process. Contrary to all our competitors our labs are open to any party (private, funeral managers, gemmologists and media) which is interested in our service. As we are head of our own presses (in contrast to some of the companies mentioned above) we are also able to offer uncut diamonds with its uniquely grown facets. We are using neither CVD nor big "chinese type" presses where you can grow dozens of diamonds in one run but use custom-made smaller presses (... well their weight is +18tons).

We are responsible for a very special service for families who desire a very individual piece of remembrance and therefore take utmost care and respect in any step of our process. Please be assured: as a member of numerours national and international funeral organisations we do not and will not sweep any cremated remains into a bin. As we own a (forest) cementry in the Alps we are able and willing to follow all rules, laws and ethics of a funeral organisation... As stated above: we are open to any visitor - come and see.

In regard of the discussion of human vs. animal cremated remains: the process is (technical spoken) identical. Due to our respect towards human life we (again in contrast to our competitors) do not offer and mix human and animal processes on/in our systems and solely offer our service for humans only. Our partner for animals is https://www.semperfides.eu which uses different HPHT-presses and is focussed memorial diamonds from animals (hair, feathers, cremated remains etc.).

Again sorry for this long post but it is a sensitive - and complex - topic. If you have any questions or need some more information on the service/process/technical matters, please feel free to contact me here (on my new account) or via mail: [email protected].

All the best to you, Frank

Can you use 21 year old remains from an urn?