There is a company called Aether Diamonds that is selling diamonds made entirely from carbon that’s captured from the air. They claim they are transforming atmospheric CO2 into gem-grade diamonds, potentially removing this harmful substance from the planet and offsetting the carbon footprint related to the other power sources needed to run a manufacturing facility.
The diamond trade in general - including mined diamond operations - is estimated to produce at least 12 million tons of C02 emissions each year. Mining operations have only begun to implement initiatives to reduce their carbon footprint.
In the lab-grown sector of the diamond business, a lot of electric power is required for production. Many lab-grown companies today are buying clean energy to power their manufacturing processes. But there are still carbon emissions related to manufacturing and shipping goods, and diamond growers who desire to be carbon-neutral have to set off those emissions in other ways.
Has Aether diamonds found a solution that could effectively make lab-grown diamonds carbon negative?
Aether captures C02 using atmospheric collectors, and they pull the C02 into specialized filters. Next, the C02 is synthesized into a usable hydrocarbon that is ideal for growing diamonds, and this hydrocarbon is placed into reactors that are used to generate new diamond material.
Right now Aether diamonds are only available through their own diamond jewelry collection on their website consisting of a few dozen styles, and at the time of this writing, there were only 15 loose diamonds available on their site for sale. This is consistent with small growing operations, which typically are using one or two growing machines and as a result have much smaller production capabilities.
As far as we can tell, there has been no 3rd party verification of these claims, but scientifically what they are claiming is certainly possible. Even though Aether appears to be in its earliest growth phase, this is an exciting development on the lab-grown diamond front; one which we should all keep an eye on as lab-grown diamonds continue to develop as both a beautiful jewelry option and an exciting growth technology.
