From Ashes to Diamonds

My weekly blog post was going to be about the taxi business in Winnipeg. However, I stopped the presses! With a civic election looming in Winnipeg, I thought it was wise to delay that story until next week. My number one daughter, Blair, came upon a blog about something I’ve known about for sometime. I think that this is an innovative idea and should be shared. Here’s why: I am a Graduate Gemologist by profession, and as such, have become well aware of the process to manufacture Diamonds using heat and pressure. This process has been used for years to manufacture idiamonds for use in industry and electronic technology.  Now, a company has been created and creative in using the carbon in the remains of the cremation to manufacture a gem quality diamond, as a keepsake.  Here is the copy (originally posted on www.boredpanda.com) of the original blog explaining the process and associated costs of a different way to remember your loved ones:

Algordanza, a Swiss company, has taken a fascinating and unexpected approach to memorializing our loved ones who have passed; They will compress and super-heat your loved one’s cremated ashes and turn them into a man-made diamond that can be worn and cherished.

It all begins with a chemical process that extracts the carbon from the departed’s ashes. This carbon is then heated to convert it into graphite. That graphite is then heated to as many as 2,700 degrees Fehrenheit and subjected to forces as high as 870,000 pounds per square inch. The color of the finished diamond, which can range from white to dark blue, depends on the boron content of the ashes of the deceased. The prices begin at 4,259 Swiss Francs ($4,474 USD) for a small diamond with no additional service.