Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2005 2:39 pm Posts: 3528 Location: San Francisco Bay Area, CA
Well, I think you'll have to assume so unless testing "proves" that there's not Beryllium contamination.
Given that that's how it seems people "discovered" the benefits of Be-treating, the chances are that the presence of the Chrysoberyl substantially affected the change in the Sapphire during heating. It would probably be best to state the stone as Be-treated given the available information.
Now, given that "modern" Be-treatment involves powdered Beryllium for greatest effect/efficiency, and your stone was heated with a parcel of Chrysoberyl stones (presumably not powdered), it is certainly possible that your sapphire was in a region of the crucible that was spared the "taint" of Be... but it would seem prudent to be "sure" before you label the item as "just" heated.
Only if their was elemental diffusion from the chrysoberyl to the corundum. That would be dependant upon temperature and duration at least.
I think only advanced testing would say for sure. What does the stone look like? Magnification may show signs of high temperature heat, but that alone isn't sufficient evidence to my knowledge.
Many microphotographs of Be treated stones are available, but again....
Immersion might show something, but I believe Be achieves complete penetration into the stone.
I didn't think chrysoberyl was typically heated, so, it sounds as if there was intent anyway.
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2006 3:24 am Posts: 4997 Location: McDonough GA
I haven't received the stone yet but I can post the vendors pic. To me it really doesnt look as bright as the Be stones I have had in the past. What I have had in the past looks almost so yellow it's fake. At least this stone is believable. It's a tat over 5 carats and will soon be coming to the Specimens forum.
Post subject: Re: Cooking Sapphire with Chrysoberyl
Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 6:10 pm
Platinum Member
Joined: Wed Nov 23, 2005 12:47 pm Posts: 2505 Location: Eastern Europe
brimsjewelry wrote:
I bought a sapphire that the vendor says was heated with a parcel of chrysoberyl. Does this count as Be-heating?
Jason
The intricate technicals are on the thread, but... from a humanistic point of view, if a seller said that, I'd understand that YES, this was Be Treated. Besides, I've heard this phrase used to romance blatantly Be-d sapphires already... so it isn't innocent anymore.
Hi,
If it was heated with some chrysoberyl then yes it is probably "Be treated". In fact the so called "Be treatment" was discover by a Thai dealer/burner who was working with yellow sapphires from Sri Lanka. In 1995 he found out that when he was heating yellow sapphires with chrysobeyl the result was better. He discovered the process by accident as in Sri Lanka yellow sapphires and yellow chrysoberyls are mixed in gem graverl and he bought many parcels where these 2 stones were mixed. As his knowledge about gems was limitated he used to heat them together. When chrysoberyl was present, the result were better.
From 1995 to 2000 he was heating all his yellow sapphires with chrysoberyls. Then when the huge sapphire deposit of Ilakaka was discovered in 1999 he started working with parcels of yellow and pink stones from this area. The pink stones turned to orangy pink...
These Orangy pink stones were rapidly a hit and were noticed by American gemologist who studied them. They found beryllium inside and also noticed that the stones had an orange rim and a pink center. They were as a result called "Beryllium diffused".
For the small story the Thai Burner refuse to agree that he was heating with chemical and told that he was not using beryllium. For him he was using a gem to help getting better result with the heat treatment of another gem. He refused to give his simple secret to everybody and simply sweared that he was not using any chemicals.
But he learned few days later that Beryllium was a natural component of all chrysoberyls...
Note: yellow sapphire heat treatment using oxydising conditions at very high temperatures was discovered at the beginning of the 1980's and it is probable that many yellow sapphires heated from this time contain in fact some beryllium as probably sapphires and chrysoberyls were mixed during many heating runs before people to understand that Chrysoberyl was improving the process. I remeber several burners telling me that sometimes they were getting reaslly good results without really to understand the reason... May be some chrysoberyls were present in the sapphire parcel. Just to say that potentialy I would not be surprised if somebody could find some "beryllium treated" sapphires in gems bought during the 1980's... 20 years before the official discovery of the so called "beryllium treatment"!
I hope that this historical background will help you to understand that "beryllium treated" or "heated with chrysobeyl" is at the end the same: Some beryllium diffused into the sapphire.
The views expressed here are V. Pardieu’s opinions and do not necessarily reflect those of GIA Laboratory Bangkok (http://www.giathai.net)where he is an employee since Dec 2008.
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