How Much Carbon Exists in the Human Body?

There are 26 unique elements found in the human body, with four key substances making up 96.2% of the average person:

65%
Oxygen (O)
18.5%
Carbon (C)
9.5%
Hydrogen (H)
3.2%
Nitrogen (N)

Carbon is a fundamental building block of life, playing a major role in DNA formation. It can be found throughout the body in bones, muscle tissue, major organs, skin, and hair.

Carbon Extraction Process

We use Total Carbon Analysis (TC) to determine the carbon content in hair. A small sample of hair is placed in a controlled, oxygen-rich environment and heated using a quartz heating element. During this process, the carbon in the hair reacts with oxygen to form carbon dioxide, which is then detected by an infrared detector. This allows us to accurately measure the carbon content in the hair, which plays a key role in its structure and strength.

How Much Hair Is Needed?

3~5g

of hair is needed to create a memorial diamond, which contains enough carbon to grow a beautiful, lasting tribute.

Reduction of Carbonates to Pure Carbon

While carbon exists in the molecular form of a carbonate compound, carbonates must first be decomposed using a high-heat reduction process to purify the hair into carbon graphite.

This complex method requires highly specialized equipment capable of reducing materials containing carbonates to crystalline graphite powder. The graphite is heated to more than 4,892°C (8,838°F), causing impurities to vaporize. The result is pure carbon that is more than 99.995% pure.

Lab process

Growing Diamonds with HPHT Technology

We use High Pressure High Temperature (HPHT) technology to grow diamonds in our laboratory. This technology originated in the 1950s and was pioneered by General Electric. Today, lab-grown diamonds are produced with such quality that they are graded identically to natural diamonds.

5.5–8.0 GPa
Pressure (weight of a jet plane on a fingertip)
2,500–3,200 °F
Temperature for diamond growth

The carbon graphite powder is placed into a growth cell and exposed to immense pressures and temperatures. The growth cell includes a small diamond seed the size of a grain of sand that functions as the formation site where carbon atoms attach and begin growing into a full diamond.

The Cosmic Significance of Carbon

We recognize carbon for the incredible material it is — one of the building blocks of Earth and a fundamental substance in our universe. It is the chemical backbone of organic life on Earth, found in stars, planets, the ocean, and our atmosphere. It is in our loved ones and in ourselves, and it carries on after we have passed.

“To transform it into a beautiful diamond is a powerful process, reminding us of our connections and the cosmic cycle of our lives.”

Why Hair Is More Suitable Than Cremated Remains for Making Memorial Diamonds

Executive Summary Across carbon availability, purification difficulty, and process reliability, hair is often more suitable than cremated remains (“cremains/Hair”) for producing memorial diamonds:

  • Higher and more consistent carbon content: Human hair is largely organic (keratin), with carbon commonly reported at ~50% by mass. (Nature)
  • Cremains are mostly inorganic bone mineral with low, variable usable carbon: Cremated remains are essentially pulverized bone mineral (often described as calcium-phosphate-based material). In radiocarbon-research contexts, the surviving "endogenous" carbon in cremated bone (structural carbonate) is described as very low abundance (~0.1%), making extraction challenging. (Psychology Today)

Key Reason #1: Orders-of-Magnitude Difference in Carbon Yield

Hair: carbon-rich organic precursor A peer-reviewed source states carbon is the major elemental constituent of hair, averaging ~50% of mass. (Nature)

Approximate yield: 100 g hair ≈ 50 g carbon

Cremains: inorganic mineral matrix, low usable endogenous carbon Cremains are widely described as primarily inorganic bone mineral rather than "soot-like ash." (Psychology Today) Radiocarbon pretreatment literature notes that structural carbonate survives cremation but at very low abundance (~0.1%), making sufficient carbon recovery difficult. (Cambridge University Press & Assessment)

Approximate endogenous-carbon yield: 100 g cremains ≈ 0.1 g carbon (order of magnitude)

So, on a “reliably extractable endogenous carbon” basis, hair can offer hundreds of times more carbon than cremains (e.g., 50 g vs 0.1 g ≈ 500×). (Nature)

Key Reason #2: Purification Burden and Impurity Risk

Memorial diamond production generally involves carbon purification → graphitization → diamond growth (HPHT/CVD).

Cremains: mineral-heavy feedstock Because cremains are dominated by bone minerals, extracting carbon requires working through a mineral matrix and managing more inorganic residues and trace elements. (Psychology Today)
  • This tends to increase process complexity,
  • variability, and
  • the impurity-control burden.
Hair: closer to a direct carbonization route Hair, being organic and carbon-rich, aligns naturally with thermal conversion to carbon/graphite, which is why many memorial-diamond descriptions present hair as a straightforward feedstock.