Breakthrough! Scientists extract diamonds from plastic by laser pulses

【Chinese Packaging Network News】 Plastics have been integrated into our daily lives, and there are numerous daily contact with plastic products. Is plastic just a very cheap and durable material in everyone's mind? Have you ever thought that one day you can extract diamonds from plastic? According to published research results, this refining process has been realized in the laboratory.

This breakthrough experiment means that the cores of some planets in our solar system may contain the entire layer of precious material - diamonds.

For a long time, people have speculated that there is diamond “rain” in the deep underground of Uranus and Neptune – this is the “crystallization” of the polymerization of carbon and hydrogen in an ultra-high pressure environment.

German researchers used X-ray free electron lasers in the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to simulate the internal environment of these planets. They use strong lasers to make shock waves in plastic.

“We have prepared the world’s brightest source of X-ray radiation for this experiment,” said Siegfried Grunzeler, a professor of photonics science at SLAC, who is also co-author of this paper. "The need for these high-intensity, rapid-pulse X-rays to see the structure of these diamonds - because they are only formed in the laboratory, the time is very short."

The nanodiamonds created in this experiment may help researchers explore the mysteries of nuclear fusion—hydrogen atom polymerization to generate helium atoms. In some fusion experiments, two hydrogen fuels were compressed within the plastic, similar to the conditions inside the planet.

These diamonds lasted less than a second. At a specific pressure/temperature, a pair of pairs of shock waves are directed toward polystyrene molecules, which in turn produces diamond microparticles. Polystyrene consists of a mixture of hydrogen and carbon, similar to the chemical composition of Neptune and Uranus.

Researchers have 'illuminated' and discovered these diamond particles by laser pulses. This is the first time that humans have observed this chemical reaction, and it has also added evidence to the theory of "the way diamonds form inside the planet."

"Previously, researchers could only assume that diamonds had already formed," says Dominique Claus. He is a scientist at the Helmholtz Association and is the first author of this paper. "The moment we saw the latest experimental results was one of the best moments in my scientific career."

Understanding the conditions of polymerization of elements under specific temperature and pressure conditions can tell us about the internal conditions of the planet and deepen our understanding of the planet. Before, we can only understand them by observing their orbits and their size.

“We cannot go deep into these planets to perform observations underground. Therefore, these laboratory results complement the observations of satellites and telescopes,” Klaus said.

Next, the team hopes to use the same method to study other chemical reactions that may occur inside the planet.

"The simulator did not really capture what we observed in this area," Glenn said. "We and our peers have proven that this kind of material polymerization under high pressure is a force that cannot be ignored."