Diamond may be the most lusted-after and enduring stone on Earth but it is also a factory’s best friend. It is extremely useful in industry, being 15 times harder than any other natural material. Diamond coatings, blades, and tips are found on wear-resistant tools across a range of fields, including mining, surgery, and drilling.
The hardness of diamond is a double-edged sword; while useful for cutting and shaping other materials, it is incredibly difficult to reshape itself. Even the development of synthetic diamond in the 1950s did not allow for complex shapes to be formed, as synthetic diamonds can only be formed into a handful of simple geometric shapes.
Now, Stockholm-based Sandvik has become the first in the world to 3D-print diamond powder, opening up countless possibilities for new super-hard industrial tools.