Diamond
is the hardest stone in the world, it ranks number 10 on the Mohs
scale which, in fact, is based on contrasting other minerals against
diamonds to see how different/close they are. This is also the most
hard-to-mine mineral: apart from that it lays deep in the Earth
bowels, it is also very hard for extracting – don't forget, this is
the hardest stone in the world. As you can see now that there is only
one strong and powerful tool that can bring diamonds on the surface –
diamond. It sound like a vicious circle but that is the thing.
This
is not a novel discovery, but it was in the 20th century,
so since that time diamonds are widely applied in industry for making
cutting, sawing, drilling tools. So today the tools are not created
but rather upgraded to make them work in better way. This is what
Boart Longyear Company has recently done.
The mineral exploration
drilling company has launched new diamond core bit, the 10 Ultramix
(UMX). The 10UMX was specifically designed to quickly penetrate the
hardest rock strata. According to Boart Longyear, this is the most
efficient bit so far that can perfectly cut in whatever drilling
conditions it is used. The technologies applied to produce such a
driller are known as 'diamond coring' having a double meaning: aiming
to drill diamond with the help of a diamond drill. Specialists at
Boart Longyear used the UMX patented formula to make the drill, that
is large synthetic diamonds within the matrix. They claim that
alongside quick penetration the 10UMX provides longer life of a tool.
Weird it may sound but it looks like they use lab-grown eco-friendly
diamonds to mine natural ones. We hope that one day synthetic
diamonds of gem quality will be highly appreciated by all sort of
customers, thus there is no need to extract natural stones any more.
But until that time comes a range of companies in Africa are now
actively using the super efficient drill.
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