2nd International Industrial Diamond Conference

Rome conference a big success

The second Diamond at Work Conference that took place in Rome in April 2007 was a great success, with a record number of attendees and papers, signalling the growing interest in the application of diamond across a broad range of industrial applications. In total, more than 350 delegates from 34 countries attended the event to listen to more than 90 separate papers.

Director of Diamond at Work Aidan Spooner opened the conference and highlighted its importance in creating a wider global appreciation of industrial diamond and its commercial potential, saying, “We have only really scratched the surface of the material’s potential,” and that the Diamond at Work conference was aimed to be a “global focus point for current and future investors.”
Like the last conference held in Barcelona, 2005, the Rome conference covered both the traditional abrasive applications of diamond as well as the newer technology-based applications. This included diamond and CBN products derived from high pressure/high temperature synthesis as well as coated and free-standing diamond products produced by low pressure Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) synthesis.

The four keynote speeches reflected this broad range and were well received by the audience. The speakers were Tom Erixon of Sandvik on Material trends and their impact on the use of superabrasives in machining, Dr Peter Malkin of Rolls-Royce on Power electronics applied to the more electric aircraft, Dr Minoru Ota of Nissan on Trends in diamond and CBN tool machining technology for automotive components and Tom Friis-Hansen, a Consultant on Corporate venturing as an investment tool.

The Executive Committee of Diamond At Work held a meeting during the conference and announced that, because of its success, an International Industrial Diamond Conference would now be held every two years in the springtime. The venue and exact dates of the 2009 conference should be announced in the next few months.

A survey was emailed to all attendees shortly after the conference finished and already the results are showing that most people considered it to be a an overwhelming success. Over 80% thought that it was the right length, had sufficiently high technical content and was reasonably priced. Significantly nearly 90% gave it a rating of either good or very good and said they would attend the next one in two years time.