LifeGem The Company That Turns Human Ashes Into Diamonds

LifeGem is the world's first company offering to synthesize diamonds from the carbonized remains of humans or their pets – resulting in what is known as memorial diamonds.

Established as the International Research & Recovery Corporation, LifeGem was the first U.S. company to develop a way to extract carbon from remains.

According to Dean VandenBiesen, speaking on the Stan and Terry show May 7, 2007, the company is able to create a diamond from a lock of hair.

The company was founded in 2001 by Greg Herro, Mike Herro, Rusty VandenBiesen, and Dean VandenBiesen, and was first based in Elk Grove Village, Illinois.

It is now headquartered in Chicago and a second office, under the name LifeGem UK, was recently opened in Hove, England. In 2006, LifeGem had US$ 7.5 million in revenue.

Projections for 2007 included an increased sales of 15% to 20%. LifeGem's services are offered at over 580 of the nearly 20,000 funeral homes in the United States.

These synthetic diamonds are touted as "memorial diamonds" and range in price from USD $3,499 for 0.20–0.29 carat (40 to 59 mg) stones to $19,999 for stones weighing 0.90–0.99 carats (180–199 mg). The company can extract enough purified carbon from one incompletely cremated human body to synthesize up to 50 gems weighing one carat (0.2 g) each. As little as 227 g of carbonized remains are needed to make one diamond, and up to 100 diamonds can be created from the remains of one individual.

Diamonds made from the remains of pets are priced the same as those made from human remains, but the size of the animal may be a limiting factor. According to Rusty van den Biesen, when enough carbon is not present in the sample, extraneous carbon is added. As of March 2005, LifeGem said it had served 1,000 customers since the company's founding.

The carbon from the remains is converted to graphite after purification, from which point it is placed in a diamond synthesis press.

The diamonds are made via the thermal gradient method using alloys as a flux at pressures of 5.0–6.0 GPa and temperatures of 1,600–2,000 °C.

The entire process, from cremation to finished stone, takes up to six months for yellow LifeGem diamonds and up to nine months for blue LifeGem diamonds.

Due to boron impurities present in the carbon, most LifeGem synthetic diamonds produced up to 2003 were Type IIb and were a light to medium blue in colour.

Iron flux inclusions within the stones also rendered them magnetic. The synthesis process has since been modified, and LifeGem now produces yellow, blue, white (clear), red, and green diamonds.

Three standard diamond cuts are offered to customers: Round brilliant, radiant, and princess (the latter two cuts are rectangular and square in outline, respectively).

The finished stones are laser inscribed with an identifier, graded by gemologists, and are given a signed certificate of authenticity which contains a LifeGem ID#.

The client also gets a report with a GIA serial number, a description of the stone's color, and the fact that it was lab-produced.