A NEW SYNTHETIC MATERIAL FROM RUSSIA
For 15 years «Rusgems» company has been known in the jewelry market as a
manufacturer of synthetic raw materials. We can say without exaggeration that with regard to
the range of offered goods we are unrivalled. Products we offer include such popular materials as
cubic zirconia, corundum and quartz as well as exotic crystals such as TiO2, Muassonite, YAG, etc.
The demand for our materials keeps steadily growing, which is clearly evident now,
during the world economic crisis. It is not surprising that a customer has become far more
careful in his/her choice of high-priced jewelry and is putting economy in the first place. All
jewelry producers have to face the same problems. On the one hand the prices of natural
gemstones both precious and semiprecious are steadily rising due to inflation and production
cutback. On the other hand a customer isn't willing to spend as much as he could afford before
the crisis. In such a manner customers are, so to speak, pushing companies to cut the prices. This
situation inevitably forces the producer to seek for synthetic counterparts. Let's see what one
can find on the market nowadays.
•
Glass. Variety of colors and moderate price could be counted as advantages.
Disadvantages are not so few: poor hardness, bad optical indexes, existence of internal bubbles,
impossibility to use the "molding with stones" technique. Therefore in no way glass could be
considered as a good imitation of natural stones.
•
CZ. CZ is the most popular material since it has high optical rates, good hardness, wide
color scale. It is also relatively cheap. But within the years CZ became “boring” to the customers
and more and more people tend to consider it to be 'bad form' for its unnatural gloss (as
Europeans say, it "impudently shines"). As such, CZ is regarded to be similar to the group of
goods which includes glass costume jewelry (intended only for single use).
•
Corundum. Color range is limited to 6-8 tints. It is generally popular as imitation of ruby
and blue sapphire. All options with the exception of ruby are rather expensive. Corundum has
very high hardness. Therefore, there are difficulties with its processing. The crystals are limited in
size (the thickness of blue color crystals doesn't exceed 9 mm) and often have non-uniform
coloring. As a result, the manufacturer faces the problem of receiving high quality faceting.
•
Spinel. All aspects relating to corundum refer to this material as well. Blue crystals are
generally used.
•
Quartz. The color scale includes 6 tints. Quartz is significant as a material that is used for
imitation of natural amethyst, citrine, smoky and green quartz. Synthetic raw material itself is
rather cheap. However, there are some difficulties when it comes to polishing, which affects the
cost of the facetted stones. Besides,
these crystals cannot be heated.
Thus, the manufacturer of jewelry
can only use manual clip of stones,
which obviously increases the price
of the product.
•
Hydrothermal Emerald,
Czochralski Alexandrite, Muassonite
etc. This group includes expensive
synthetic crystals that could serve as
a perfect imitation of natural stones.
The high price, however, keeps it
from being widely used.
PHOTO #1
The review above reveals that, despite the wide range of options, there is still a need for more
optimized raw material.
Let’s define requirements to synthetic raw materials taking in consideration what was said at the
beginning of the article:
- Reproduction of the exact color of the natural counterpart;
- Wide range of colors;
- Optical characteristics (gloss) close to those of the natural counterpart;
- Optimal hardness (7 on Mohs’
scale), i.e. neither too soft nor
too firm;
C (i.e. "wax casting")
- Consistent coloring within a
piece and from one lot to
another;
- Opportunity to make stones of
middle and big sizes;
- Optimal density;
PHOTO #2
- Affordable price.
Till recently there was no material that completely matched all specified criteria. Today
we are glad to introduce NANOSITAL. We developed it at Rusgems as a product that entirely
fullfils existing demands.
NANOSITAL is an optically transparent polycrystal material that is produced by
crystallization of glass that has certain chemical composition. Compared to the glass NANOSITAL
has higher physical and chemical characteristics. NANOSITAL falls under the group of glass
ceramic materials which have been known for over than 50 years and have wide range of
compositions and applications.
Rusgems adapted the existing technology to the needs of jewelry producers and
managed to create the optimal jewelry material. The multi-component high-temperature
composition is based on two oxides SiO2 and Al2O3. It’s well known that these oxides are the
main components of most of the natural jewelry stones.
The other NANOSITAL components are selected in order to meet requirements
concerning optical characteristics, density and hardness. Our technology allows modifying
components of composition in various ways to achieve perfect correspondence between
NANOSITAL and its natural counterpart.
It is common knowledge that the idea of “beauty” is essential for jewelry business. It’s a
more or less subjective criterion which in our case embraces both color and gloss.
Here at Rusgems we cherished the desire to produce material which would fascinate
every customer. This goal was reached by inventing NANOSITAL. The new material is completely
different from anything else that could be found on the market. Any comparison would prove it
to be best of its kind.
To gain such high performance we not only use Rusgems' own state-of-the-art
technological equipment but also latest research and development achievements in the field of
material production.
PHOTO #3
PHOTO #4
NANOSITAL is synthesized at a tempe
С. It's main characteristics in
comparison with well-known materials are shown in the table. It is evident that NANOSITAL is
quite similar to topaz in many ways. NANOSITAL's transparency and wide range of colors allows it
to imitate almost all types of colored natural stones from topaz and garnet to emerald and
sapphire.
We should mention that there have already been some efforts to produce the material
which is similar to NANOSITAL on the market. The producers of glass-ceramics, for instance,
announce that they can provide a variety of colored imitations. Nevertheless, it turns out that
there are only a few options. And, though the name Sapphire or London Blue is used, it means
nothing else than blue color. Still, as stated above, the exact reproduction of the color is what
matters to a customer, which means that the stone should not be merely blue, but has to be
sapphire blue or the shade of London Blue Topaz.
As for NANOSITAL, it surely meets the challenge. Photos 1 and 2 demonstrate
NANOSITAL raw material of London Topaz color in comparison with natural analogues. Photo #3
shows the correspondence between a well-known gemstone called blue corundum (#34), and
our NANOSITAL ('Blue Sapphire'). Two versions of cut stones are presented in the photo #4.
Those are the natural London Blue Topaz and its NANOSITAL imitation. It’s next to impossible to
see the difference between them. In addition, their densities are also almost identical. Today
Rusgems offers 50 varieties of colored NANOSITAL, which would satisfy any exacting taste. For
instance, there are imitations of peridot that reproduct specific details that enable to distinguish
stones obtained from different fields (Pakistan, China, etc.). We can even produce such exotic
stones as “Paraiba Sital” or “Zultanite Sital” (photo #5), which is very popular at the moment.
Furthermore, Rusgems is always ready to produce the exclusive stone of the unique
color using the sample given by a client. Another special thing about Rusgems is that we are the
only company capable of making colorchanging NANOSITAL, as well as bicolor
stones.
Taking market demand into
account, Rusgems produces wide range of
colors of quartz group. It has recently
become possible to use the so-called "wax
casting" technology for such popular colors
as citrine, smoky and green quartz, etc.
PHOTO #5
It is important to note that NANOSITAL's has good optical properties. Its gloss
corresponds to that of the most attractive natural stones, namely sapphire, ruby and topaz,
which becomes especially apparent when medium and large stones come into sight. Comparison
of NANOSITAL with any other nanomaterial (photo #6) reveals advantages of the former, since
the latter is characterized by cloudiness and cheap glass glare.
To sum it up, Rusgems has created unique material with unrivaled characteristics. It
keeps all the best features of its prototype (color, pureness, gloss and beauty), leaving drawbacks
(processing difficulties, unstable color, and most important – high price) behind.
During these ambiguous times we all have to make bold and innovative business moves.
That's why right now is the best moment to bring into the world our new material
refined with your jewelry design.
PHOTO #6
You will find more about Rusgems Group products at the group’s web sites
www.rusgems.info
Contacts:
Hong Kong, tel.: +852-2362-1820, fax: +852-2362-1826, e-mail: [email protected]
Bangkok, tel.: +662-2674920, fax: +662-2674921, e-mail: [email protected]
Wuzhou, tel.: +86774-3823588, fax: +86774-3823365, e-mail: [email protected]
Guanzhou, tel.: +86208-1712691, fax: +86208-1712692, e-mail: [email protected]
NANOSITAL® and SITAL® are patented trademarks of Rusgems® Group of Companies. All rights reserved.