Comparison of flux and natural sapphire after heat-treatment

Various fabrication methods have been used to synthesize sapphire which has qualities of jewelry well beyond the industrial class. Among them, the flux sapphire of Chatham Company which has as high value as jewelry was selected in order to compare natural and synthetic sapphire. First, the WD-XRF (Wavelength dispersive x-ray fluorescence spectrometer) was used to analyze the chemical composition of natural and synthetic sapphire. Although natural sapphire had very diverse chemical compositions, flux sapphire had small quantities of Mo, Pt and Pb elements in addition to the similar chemical ingredients to natural one. Pt is decisive proof of flux sapphire. Next, by investigating spectroscopic characteristics using UV-VIS Spectrophotometer after heat treatment at high temperatures of 1300 degrees C and 1500 degrees C, the variation of 690 nm absorbance related to Cr3+ was detected in the natural sapphire while those of the 690 nm absorbance (related to Cr3+) as well as absorbance of 376 nm and 388 nm (Fe3+) were seen in the flux sapphire. It was found that the difference in the absorbance variation of flux sapphire is greater than that of natural sapphire after heat treatment. The chemical composition and spectrum analysis were utilized to compare the natural sapphire and the flux synthetic sapphire.