Now, Device Can Check Jewellery For Natural or Synthetic Diamonds

SURAT: Diamond jewellery connoisseurs in India and around the world will now be able to check whether the diamonds studded in their articles are natural or synthetic diamonds. Until now, the diamonds mounted in jewellery pieces could not be checked in a testing equipment in any of the gemological laboratories around the world.

Now, it's going to be easy to identify the diamonds, whether they are natural or synthetic diamonds even if mounted in jewellery.

Gemological Institute of America (GIA) is all set to introduce a sophisticated desktop instrument to reliably identify natural diamonds, separate them from all simulants and from diamonds that may be synthetic or treated.

Sources said the GIA's mounted gem testing device combines advanced spectroscopic technology, extensive research into qualities of natural, treated and synthetic diamonds and its decades of diamond analysis experience to identify more than 97 per cent of untreated natural, mounted and un-mounted D-to-Z diamonds 0.9mm or greater in diameter (approximately 0.005 carat). Diamonds that may be synthetic or treated and all simulants are referred for further examination and confirmation.

As per GIA's official communique, the new instrument will be priced to be "accessible to the trade", and is scheduled to be available from late 2017.

"There is perhaps no greater issue in the gem and jewellery trade today than concerns about possibility of undisclosed synthetic diamonds being inadvertently sold to consumers," said GIA president and CEO Susan Jacques. "This new instrument is the culmination of more than 60 years of GIA research into synthetic diamonds and will give the trade- including retail jewellers- the ability to have immediate confidence in their diamonds," she said.

Wuyi Wang, GIA's director of research and development, had demonstrated a functioning prototype of the instrument in Surat on April 14 during the Diamond Detection Expo and Symposium (DDES) sponsored by the Gem and Jewellery Export Council. The GIA is conducting further research and development to extend the capabilities of the instrument to identify natural pink diamonds and other materials.

Diamond analyst Aniruddha Lidbide said, "After a series of revelations on undisclosed mixing of synthetic diamonds with natural diamonds, it is crucial for reputed gem testing laboratories to do research in providing a technology to detect diamonds studded in jewellery.

The GIA's new invention is surely going to uphold consumer's confidence in India and around the world".