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Have you ever heard of Lonsdaleit? If you google it, you will find something like this definition: The material is a rare high-pressure modification of diamond. It belongs to the group of minerals and crystallizes in a hexagonal structure with special material properties. For example, it is described as 58 percent harder than an ordinary diamond. And diamonds are generally considered to be the hardest material in the world.
Lonsdaleit would therefore have the highest degree of hardness of any naturally occurring material. If it even exists. Since its discovery in 1967 by the Irish crystallographer and professor Kathleen Lonsdale in Barringer Crater, its existence has repeatedly been questioned. Criticism of it has increased, especially in recent years: it is just an unusually structured diamond, but not an independent mineral.
Main hardware resources
Huge amounts have just been discovered
Lonsdaleit does exist!
However, researchers have now succeeded in detecting and even mapping large quantities of Lonsdaleit and diamond in so-called ureilite meteorites, which very likely originate from the mantle of a dwarf planet in the inner solar system that was destroyed billions of years ago. That reports the scientific journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America). The fact that the material looks so similar to diamonds is due to the so-called pseudomorphosis.
This is how Lonsdaleit is created: To put it simply, Lonsdaleit is formed by the reaction between graphite, CHOS supercritical fluids
Like diamond, Lonsdaleit is a phase of carbon, but according to the researchers it is still a mineral in its own right. After 55 years, the secret of the hardest material seems finally to be revealed.
What is Lonsdaleit good for? With the knowledge of the formation of Lonsdaleit, it is now possible to manufacture the mineral industrially. Just like man-made diamonds, it can then be used to process materials. They are therefore now indispensable in electronics. Speaking of diamonds:
Have you ever heard of Lonsdaleit? What do you think of the discovery? And are you interested in such topics in general? Write it to us in the comments!
