20-6-2018
The Scientific and Technical Research Center for Diamond (WTOCD) of Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC) has developed a technology that fully automates the diamond polishing process.
Researchers claim that the new machine, FENIX will greatly shorten the production process from an entire day to one and a half hours, which is 10 to 20 times faster than by hand. The developers believe FENIX is also more precise than manual polishing. “This discovery fundamentally changes the diamond-polishing process. Today’s wages simply make it too expensive to conduct this labour intensive job in our country. FENIX puts an end to this, and can, therefore, be a real game changer for the Antwerp diamond industry,” said Ari Epstein, CEO of the AWDC.
The diamond polishing process has not changed since the 15century. Most of the work is done by hands despite partial mechanization introduced. WTOCD has spent more than 10 years on developing the machine. The company is now testing the technology with their diamonds and is expected to put on the market in September this year.
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