Diamond suspensions (colour coded) automatically dosed onto the polishing cloth offering a suspension of diamond particles in water, alcohol or oil soluble media is a simple way to dispense the diamond particles for polishing. Available in 500ml bottles fitted with a trigger spray to dispense the particles for polishing. Two grades of diamond are used – monocrystalline and polycrystalline. Oil based suspensions are used where the use of water in a preparation method is not possible due to the sensitivity of the sample. The oil based products give a less Diamond monocrystalline suspensions water, alcohol and oil based aggressive polishing or grinding action compared to water based suspensions. Other abrasives, such as alumina (Al2 O3 ), in a finely dispersed suspension form are used for final polishing beyond the scope of diamond materials. Alumina powder or colloidal silica (Si02) can also be used. The three parameters used to characterise high quality diamond compounds and suspensions are: particle-shape, particle-size distribution range and average number of facets per diamond crystal. Optimum particle shape leads to improved material life while the abundance of diamond facets leads to rapid material removal during grinding. A narrow particle size distribution improves the performance of the diamond for a given preparation protocol. An improvement in the average number of cutting facets per particle is obtained by using polycrystalline diamond in place of monocrystal particles. This leads to higher material removal rates, improved surface finish and a minimum of subsurface deformation.

Monocrystalline diamond contains a single crystal structure, which has distinct cleavage planes causing the diamond to fracture under stress. This can result in deeper vertical micro scratching on certain materials which is either tolerated or can take longer to polish out.

Polycrystalline diamond has much smaller cleavage planes which causes only surface microfractures. The random structure gives polycrystalline diamond toughness in all directions resulting in less sub-surface damage. Polycrystalline diamond gives faster stock removal and better surface finish especially on harder materials than monocrystalline. The greatest difference in performance is with the finer micron sizes.

A range of polishing media and accessories, give us a call to discuss the options +44 (0) 1943 879001.


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