When the word “Diamond” comes to your mind you will definitely think first about the Natural Diamond. But now a day there are many alternatives of diamonds available such as Lab-made diamonds (it includes CVD and CVD and also has many types) Gemstone, Moissanite & CZ (Cubic Zirconia).
As we are making jewelry using Moissanite and CZ stones here we are going to provide some details of the stones we are using in our jewelry.
Cubic Zirconia(CZ) is a crystalline cubic form of zirconium dioxide (ZrO2). This synthesized material is mostly colorless and hard. but it can be made with a variety of colors in the factory. Production of cubic zirconia was beginning in 1976.
Cubic zirconia has good durability and it has a close visual likeness to diamond. so it’s a widely used alternative in jewelry.
Moissanite is one kind of naturally made stone and is very rare in its natural form. It’s a composition of silicon carbide and crystalline polymorphs. The chemical formula of moissanite is SiC and it’s a rare mineral first discovered in 1893 by French chemist “Henri Moissan”.
Moissanite is tough and its hardness is very near to natural diamond. Also, its sparkle, toughness, and shine are very close to Diamonds. It’s Cheaper than diamond but a little more expensive compared to cubic zirconia.
In 1893, Moissanite crystal was first identified as diamond but later in 1904, it was identified as silicon carbide. Do you know artificial silicon carbide was synthesized in the lab by “Edward G. Acheson” two years before the discovery of moissanite in 1893 by “Henri Moissan”.
In 1958, Inside the upper mantle Green River Formation in Wyoming USA moissanite was found and the following year, from a diamond mine in Yakutia (Republic of Sakha).
Crystalline structure of moissanite is similar to diamonds, it’s held together with strong covalent bonding. Because of this property of moissanite can withstand up to 52.1 gigapascals high pressure. Its color varies and somehow it also graded D to K on diamond grading scale.
On Mohs hardness scale based on ranking 1 to 10 Diamonds is 10 and Moissanite is 9.25 to 9.50. Which make Moissanite the second hardest on Mohs scale.
