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Element Six is a company specialised in providing synthetic diamond, cubic boron nitride and other superhard materials for industrial use.Part of the
De Beers Group De Beers Group is an international corporation that specializes in diamond Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphi ...
, Element Six employs over 1,900 people and its primary manufacturing sites are located in the UK, Ireland, Germany, South Africa, and the US. Element Six advanced engineering materials are used in abrasive applications such as cutting, grinding, drilling, shearing and polishing, while the extreme properties of synthetic diamond beyond hardness are applied in a wide array of industrial and technology applications such as optics, power transmission, water treatment, semi-conductors, sensors and quantum information processing.


History

Sir
Ernest Oppenheimer Sir Ernest Oppenheimer (22 May 1880 – 25 November 1957), KStJ was a diamond and gold mining entrepreneur, financier and philanthropist, who controlled De Beers and founded the Anglo American Corporation of South Africa. Career Ernest Oppenhei ...
formed Industrial Distributors Ltd in 1946, the first entity to focus on the industrial uses of natural diamond. In 1956 it was decided that
De Beers De Beers Group is an international corporation that specializes in diamond mining, diamond exploitation, diamond retail, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors. The company is active in open-pit, large-scale alluvial and c ...
should make a concerted effort to produce
synthetic diamond Lab-grown diamond (LGD; also called laboratory-grown, laboratory-created, man-made, artisan-created, artificial, synthetic, or cultured diamond) is diamond that is produced in a controlled technological process (in contrast to naturally formed ...
and, in response, a research group, called the Adamant Research Laboratory, was established and housed as a subdivision of the laboratory. Two years later, after intensive research into high-pressure and temperature techniques, a team led by Dr Jan Custers and Dr Henry Dyer produced successful results.
East Rand facility to produce a third of world's synthetic-diamond output
', Venter, Irma, Mining Weekly, 2001-11-23, Retrieved: 2021-05-04
Their success in the synthesis of diamonds was announced to the world in 1959 by
Harry Oppenheimer Harry Frederick Oppenheimer (28 October 1908 – 19 August 2000) was a prominent South African businessman, industrialist and philanthropist. Oppenheimer was often ranked as one of the wealthiest people in the world, and was considered South A ...
. A full-scale plant to produce synthetic industrial diamonds commercially started operation in
Springs, Gauteng Springs is a former independent city that is now part of the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, City of Ekurhuleni, based in the east of Johannesburg East Rand, (East Rand), in Gauteng Province, South Africa. It lies 50 km (31 mi) ea ...
, in 1961, followed by a second plant in
Shannon, County Clare Shannon () or Shannon Town (), named after the river near which it stands, is a town in County Clare, Ireland. It was given town status on 1 January 1982. The town is located just off the N19 road, a spur of the N18/M18 road between Limeric ...
, in May 1963. These two developments gave birth to the De Beers Industrial Diamonds group. By the 1960s, the company was offering a range of diamond grit products that was followed by nickel and coated diamond materials plus grinding products based on cubic boron nitride. The company acquired a manor house in
Sunninghill, Berkshire Sunninghill is a village in the civil parish of Sunninghill and Ascot in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in the English county of Berkshire. Location It is south west and about from Heathrow Airport and from Central London. I ...
, called Charters in 1975 and used it as a research and technical support centre. Charters was sold in 2002 to a residential developer. In 1992, breakthroughs in chemical vapour deposition technology opened the opportunity to synthesize diamond films and a new raft of application areas became possible. The De Beers Industrial Diamond Division acquired the super-abrasive distribution business from company Ernst Winter in Germany in 1996, as well as Winter“s joint ventures in other countries. A new diamond research laboratory was officially opened in
Springs, Gauteng Springs is a former independent city that is now part of the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, City of Ekurhuleni, based in the east of Johannesburg East Rand, (East Rand), in Gauteng Province, South Africa. It lies 50 km (31 mi) ea ...
, by South African President
Thabo Mbeki Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki KStJ (; born 18 June 1942) is a South African politician who was the second president of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008, when he resigned at the request of his party, the African National Congress (ANC ...
on November 1, 2001. In 2002, the company changed its name to Element Six. The acquisition of a majority of the shareholding of OJSC "Poltava Diamond Plant", a Ukrainian diamond synthesis plant which produces resin bond synthetic diamond was announced on April 3, 2006. On April 19, 2006, Element Six opened its first manufacturing site in Asia in
Suzhou Suzhou (; ; Suzhounese: ''sou¹ tseu¹'' , Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Soochow, is a major city in southern Jiangsu province, East China. Suzhou is the largest city in Jiangsu, and a major economic center and focal point of trade ...
,
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, for the production of specialized type of synthetic diamond for internal use in the manufacturing of polycrystalline products. Element Six purchased Barat Carbide, the former hard materials group of
Boart Longyear Boart Longyear is an international mineral exploration company founded in 1890 in the United States. It is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, with regional offices and operations in the Asia-Pacific region, North and South America, Europe, a ...
in 2007 and expanded its product portfolio to include tungsten carbide parts for soft rock mining tools or as wear parts. In December 2012, Element Six announced that it has acquired US-based Megadiamond's
cutting tool In the context of machining, a cutting tool or cutter is typically a hardened metal tool that is used to cut, shape, and remove material from a workpiece by means of machining tools as well as abrasive tools by way of shear deformation. The major ...
business from
Schlumberger Schlumberger Limited (), doing business as SLB, is an oilfield services company. Schlumberger has four principal executive offices located in Paris, Houston, London, and The Hague. Schlumberger is the world's largest offshore drilling compa ...
to become the largest supplier of abrasive supermaterials for the Automotive and
Aerospace Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space. Aerospace activity is very diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial and military applications. Aerospace engineering consists of aeronautics and astrona ...
sectors. In 2012, Element Six announced to build a Global Innovation Centre near Oxford in the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
, which was opened in 2013.


Products

Products offered by Element Six fall into two broad categories - superabrasives and advanced diamond products. The largest part of the company's business today is in superabrasives. These products are based on the world's hardest materials such as synthetic diamond and cubic boron nitride that are used in a wide range of cutting, grinding and drilling applications range from oil and gas exploration to machine tools, automotive part manufacturing and marble production.


See also

*
List of synthetic diamond manufacturers Synthetic diamonds are produced via high pressure, high temperature (HPHT) or chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technology. These diamonds have numerous industrial and commercial uses including cutting tools, thermal conductors and consumer diamond g ...
*
Material properties of diamond Diamond is the allotrope of carbon in which the carbon atoms are arranged in the specific type of cubic lattice called diamond cubic. It is a crystal that is transparent to opaque and which is generally isotropic (no or very weak birefringence ...


References


External links


Element Six
{{Authority control Technology companies established in 1946 Synthetic diamond 1946 establishments in Luxembourg