The Nature Company - Carborundum ( moissanite) 120-150 mm

All Categories > Crystals

Synthetic silicon carbide crystal aggregate: iridescent twinned crystals in foreground with untwinned tabular crystals in background. They have a metallic lustre and are razor-sharp. The word moissanite is a trade name given to silicon carbide for use in the gem business. The material was discovered by Edward Goodrich Acheson in 1893 or 1893, and he not only developed the electric batch furnace by which SiC is still made today, but also formed The Carborundum Company to manufacture it in bulk, initially for use as an abrasive. It is said that Acheson was trying to dissolve carbon in molten corundum (alumina) and discovered the presence of hard, blue-black crystals which he believed to be a compound of carbon and corundum: hence carborundum. Or, he named the material carborundum by analogy to corundum, which is another very hard substance (9 on the Mohs scale).