If all the carbon in an apple were converted into diamond, how large would that diamond be?

Question

http://wapsisquare.com/d/20071109.html
...shows a rather large diamond produced. Should it be this large? How many apples would be needed to produce a carat (not a carrot)?

Answer 1

Ok. I've taken the average mass to be 100g (same as above).

Now:
CHO = 13.81g
Fat = 0.17g
Protein = 0.26g

For simplicity, I assume 40% of CHO is carbon (by mass) giving 5.524g. All of fat can be carbon (ish) and 50% of protein (giving 0.13g). For vitamins, etc, numbers are very small so I will round up later to give a maximum estimate.

Adding my values up I come to around 6g of a 100g apple is carbon. This, assuming the density shown above of 3.52 g/cm^3 gives a maximum volume of around 1.7 cm^3.

However, this is still a little big... But not too much.

Answer 2

There is more than enough carbon in the apple to make most women very happy

1 Carat is only 200 miligrams.

Even a small apple weighs at least 100 grams. Assuming that the apple contains 90% water and the remaining mass as carbohydrates, there would be 10 grams of carbohydrates.
Even if the carbohydrates were even 20% carbon, which is low, the diamond would be about 2 grams or 10 Carats.

Answer 3

Assuming the weight of an average-sized apple to be 100g. And the density of a pure diamond to be 3.52 g/cm^3 gives a diamond of around 28.4 cm^3.

However, apples are obviously not 100% carbon, otherwise they would, just plainly, suck.

After some search engine searching, I believe the max carbon content is around 13% of the mass of the apple, making a max volume of 3.7cm^3.

Although, the volume will be undoubtedly less than this, this is the easiest value to obtain - the diamond created in the strip is a little too big.

Hope it helps...kinda

Answer 4

Cute, but I think the diamond would be much smaller.

Answer 5

How big is your apple?