UNT College of Visual Arts and Design’s Shane Mecklenburger and the University of North Texas’s Justin Youngblood have found a new and innovative way of turning gunpowder into artificially formed diamonds.

This is not the first time unconventional materials have been chemically manipulated to form a compound similar to the chemical makeup of a diamond’s crystalline structure. In fact, Mecklenburger reportedly had the idea of turning the unlikely substance into gunpowder following a conversation regarding companies in the US specializing in turning a deceased loved one’s genetic material (such as ashes, bone fragments or hairs) into a synthetic diamond.



Mecklenburger explains that he initiated this experiment after having discovered that synthetically produced diamonds were similar, if not identical, to naturally mined diamonds in terms of their molecular structures. Mecklenburger’s study may hail the beginning of a number of studies conducted in an attempt to produce cost efficient diamonds out of everyday materials, in the hopes of abolishing the ‘blood diamond’ phenomena prevalent in Africa.

Blood diamonds, a term used by diamond and precious gemstone retailers and manufacturers signifying diamonds that lack proper certification, whose origin isn’t known, are banned by most diamond dealers adhering to the KPCS (Kimberley Process Certification Scheme). The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme was originally instated in 2003 and was designed to regulate globally traded diamonds in order to ensure that diamonds mined in a manner which directly violates the mine’s workers’ basic human rights, diamonds uncertified by KPCS regulators, will not be exported or imported.

The main drawback with studies such as Mecklenburger’s, studies centering on converting certain materials into synthetic diamonds, is how expensive they actually are. In Mecklenburger’s case, converting gunpowder into a diamond weighing a third of a carat cost approximately three thousand dollars. While abolishing blood diamond trade is of the utmost importance, customers will not be willing to pay an overinflated price for a synthetic diamond which, according to current diamond market prices and trends, is valued nowhere near its production price.

Consequently, synthetic diamond labs are constantly striving to upgrade their technologies in an attempt to produce affordable synthetic diamonds for the mass public. While these labs are expecting that some customers will still prefer natural diamonds, they are hoping that other customers will see the benefit of buying a cost efficient diamond and precious gemstone, whose production did not involve an infringement on human rights.