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You don't need to dig into the Earth to find diamonds. Just reach for the Jif. In his quest to mimic conditions deep inside the Earth, Dan Frost of the Bayerisches Geoinstitut in Germany has discovered a way to turn peanut butter and carbon dioxide into diamonds.

Frost was working to replicate the crystalline structures believed to exist in the lower mantle of the Earth. During his research, he discovered an effect that might pull carbon dioxide from the crust down into deeper layers. The process essentially extracts the oxygen from CO2, leaving behind carbon that, under intense pressure, and form diamonds.

To replicate this in the lab, the scientists tried subjecting a carbon-rich material—peanut butter—to such high pressures. Volatile hydrogen entered the mix and ruined the experiment, but not before diamonds emerged in the high pressure environment.

Don't expect the process to yield a new way of crafting your engagement ring. But it could lead the way to other methods for pressurizing carbon-rich materials into diamonds that could be used in superconductors and quantum computing. In the process, we might even learn a little about how our planet formed.

Via BBC.

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