An international team under the direction of researchers from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (Germany) has succeeded in transforming bottle plastic into diamonds, reports Futura Sciences.
The experiment, published Friday in
Science Advances
, is unlikely to alter the value of real diamonds, however.
It was actually intended to better understand the phenomena that occur in the atmospheres of Neptune and Uranus.
The atmosphere of these two planets is in fact subject to extreme temperature conditions and pressures.
Theories then emerged about diamond rains on these planets.
To find out more, scientists have sought to recreate in the laboratory what is happening on these stars.
For this, they used a PET (polyethylene terephthalate) film, a plastic used to make bottles and which has the particularity of having a carbon, hydrogen and oxygen composition similar to that of the atmospheres of Neptune and of Uranus.
Useful nanodiamonds
To briefly reproduce the conditions of these planets, they then bombarded this film with a laser beam, causing it to reach 6,000°C and extreme pressure levels for a few nanoseconds.
This very short exposure was enough for nanodiamonds to form.
A similar phenomenon had already been observed during a previous experiment carried out on hydrocarbon films.
But this time, the presence of oxygen seems to have accelerated the process.
In addition to informing us about Neptune and Uranus, this discovery could facilitate the production of nanodiamonds, these tiny precious stones being increasingly used to manufacture abrasives, quantum sensors or even medical contrast products, specifies
Futura Sciences
.
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