2017 saw a considerable rise in the production, consumption as well as adoption of Lab-grown diamonds. Diamond Foundry, a Silicon Valley start-up, opened up a new production facility in San Francisco. A recent study claimed that annual production of Lab-grown diamonds sored to 4.2 million carats, making the market segment an estimated USD 16.2 Bn. Various technological applications involving man-made diamonds were also witnessed in 2017. If past year was such a success, one only wonders where will the Lab-grown diamond market head to in the current year.
Demand and production of Lab-grown diamonds
Lab-grown diamonds are now being increasingly introduced in the market day by day. It is expected that Lab-grown diamonds’ market would grow to USD 27.6 Bn by 2023, at CAGR 7.4% over the years. The main reasons for growth of Lab-grown diamonds are increasing demand for ethical and environment friendly jewelry and rising disposable income. At the same time, mined diamond reserves are depleting rapidly.
China and India being the leaders in diamond market make Asia Pacific gain a leading share in the growth. The region is known for low operational costs for setting up manufacturing units. Currently, institutes like IMMT Bhubaneshwar, CGCRI Kolkata, IIT-Madras Chennai, IIT Mumbai, BIT-Mesra Ranchi and Technos Instruments Jaipur are manufacturing Lab-grown diamonds using Carbon Vapor Deposition (CVD) technique, in India.
Dr. S.K. Mishra, acting director at CSIR Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology (IMMT), Bhubaneshwar said, “At IMMT, we are able to make diamond coating (which consist of microscopic diamond crystals) in a microwave plasma CVD reactor. Although the process is quite complex.”
Technological applications of Lab-grown Diamonds
Lab-grown diamond are being adopted for various technological applications as well. Electronics industry uses Lab-grown diamonds for conductors and wafer substrates. Besides, each passing day new breakthroughs in Lab-grown diamonds’ application in Technology arena are found.
Lab-grown diamond jewlery
Colored diamonds can be grown easily in a laboratory setting and takes much lesser time as compared to the mined counterparts to grow. This makes them one of the major attractions for luxury jewelry market. Various social media and internet blogs have noted the rise in adoption of Lab-grown diamonds over mined ones. Millennials have been the major driving force for many jewellers to add Lab-grown diamonds in their range of jewlery.
EcoStar Diamond introduces the Elite Collection
Washington-based EcoStar Diamonds, a Lab-grown diamond company recently introduced the Elite Collection consisting of Lab-grown diamonds to their already existing extensive collection. The collection consists of diamonds of the color in the range of DEF to VS.
“We wanted to extend our collection beyond our unique Lab-Diamond Infused Simulants for couples who desire the qualities of a mined diamond, but have ethical as well as environmental concerns of purchasing a naturally mined diamond. All of our lab created diamond pieces are accompanied with an IGI Lab certificate of origin as well, to provide assurance that they are ethically grown with minimal environmental impact,” said Diamond Expert and Managing Director A. Messnick.
From the above factors, it is clear that the Lab-grown diamond market is going to keep growing. An online poll (with a negligible base of responses as of 19th Jan) however indicates that around 52% of consumers would propose with or happily accept a Lab-grown diamond.
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