The American company Diamond Foundry will invest 670 million to build a diamond manufacturing plant in the Extremadura town of Trujillo, and thus take advantage of the 3,000 hours of sunshine it offers per year.
There are two methods to obtain diamonds:
1- High Pressure, High Temperature: starting from carbon or a diamond seed in a metallic liquid, subjecting it to high pressure and temperature. With this method rough diamond is obtained.
2- Chemical Vapor Deposition: the starting point is a gas or mineral compose with a high level of carbon that is deposited in plasma reactors (fourth state of matter), creating fine layers of diamond “wafers”, which could be used as semiconductors, due to their great hardness and thermal conductivity, a highly demanded product due to 5G and the manufacture of electric cars, for example..
The last method is which will be used in the Trujillo factory. Both methods need to reach very high temperatures, between 800 and 1600 degrees, with its consequent energy cost. For this reason, they have chosen the town of Trujillo and its more than 3,000 hours of sunshine per year, since the plasma reactors will work thanks to a 120 megawatt photovoltaic plant that will be built next to the factory.
For more information, go to: https://www-elperiodicoextremadura-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.elperiodicoextremadura.com/extremadura/2021/07/04/diamantes-sol-trujillo-54649456.amp.html?utm_source=upday&utm_medium=referral
