(PRESS RELEASE) BASEL, SWITZERLAND — The Swiss Gemmological Institute SSEF and UNIMEC SA, a robotics company also headquartered in Switzerland, have announced the release of the ASDI-500, a new version of the Automated Diamond Spectral Inspection device. Able to screen very large quantities of round colorless polished melee, detecting and extracting synthetics and simulants from among the natural diamonds, the ASDI-500 is the only such system operating today that has the degree of precision to handle stones as small as 500 microns (0.5 mm) in diameter.
When it was introduced eight years ago, the ASDI was the very first device able to automatically screen large batches of colorless diamonds. It was developed to protect the integrity of the Swiss watch and jewelry industry, which as major consumers of melee must be able to ensure that undisclosed synthetics and simulants are not being sold as natural diamonds.
Prior to the release of the ASDI-500, no automatized authentication solution was available for very small melee. The new device is able to analyze round polished diamonds ranging in diameter from 0.50 to 3.80 mm, operating at an unmatched average sorting speed of 700 stones per hour. The machine can detect all colorless synthetic diamonds, both HPHT and CVD grown, and diamond simulants.
“The ASDI-500 is the first-ever automatic machine to fill the gap between approximately 0.50 mm and 1.00 mm,” explained Jean-Pierre Chalain, director of SSEF’s diamond department. “To an uninformed person, this gap may seem insignificant, but traders and consumers of melee know that it represents millions of diamonds per month.”
UNIMEC integrated within the ASDI-500 its extremely fast pick-and-place robot, which has an astounding precision of positioning of 5 microns.
The ASDI-500 will be officially unveiled at the GemGenève International Gem and Jewellery Show, November 3-6, 2022, at Palexpo in Geneva. Interested parties are invited to contact SSEF for a viewing of the instrument.
The ASDI-500 is manufactured and commercialized by UNIMEC SA. For further details please contact: marketing@unimecsa.ch.