Hong Kong: Diamond Services has announced that it will begin offering synthetic diamond screening services directly to the Chinese diamond trade through the facilities in Shanghai of NGGC, the state-owned gem laboratory that is one of the largest grading institutes in China.
The synthetic diamond screening service will begin on November 2.
Diamond Services, which was established in 2012 in Hong Kong, is as a developer and provider of gemmological services and technology. For its new offering in Shanghai it has installed its recently released mini Raman Spectrometer, which is able to accurately detect HPHT and CVD lab-grown synthetic diamonds and HPHT colour-treated diamonds, as well as diamond simulants.
“Our goal is to expand the services being provided by NGGC by providing definitive and rapid confirmation as to whether a diamond is synthetic or not,” said Joseph Kuzi, Diamond Services’ founder and President. “Chinese traders will no longer have to withdraw suspect goods from circulation for lengthy periods of time, before they can be examined properly using the appropriate equipment. At NGGC we will be able to examine a stone immediately, and provide a final decision.”
The mini Raman Spectrometer has just successfully completed its trial stage, after being installed and tested by a large diamond manufacturing company in Surat, India. “We deliberately selected a high-volume cutting and polishing operation, to ascertain that our system would continue performing at optimal efficiency, even under the most pressured of circumstances. We are very satisfied with the results,” Kuzi said.
The desktop-sized mini Raman Spectrometer, which was introduced to the public at the Hong Kong Jewellery & Gem Fair in September, is able to test both mounted and non-mounted stones, and deliver its results in an easy-to-read and interpret format. Designed by Diamond Services to meet the needs of both gem labs and private diamond-trading companies, it costs 90 per cent less than the equivalent Raman Spectrometer systems used by the leading gem labs.
Diamond Services is committed to the release of one new synthetic diamond detection device per year. In 2013 it first introduced the DiamaPen®, a hand-held laser device that is able to detect fancy colour synthetic diamonds. In 2014 it introduced DiamaTest®, an innovative system that screens both loose and colourless diamonds for synthetics, for which it won the prestigious JNA 2014 Award.
