Ballas (or shot

bort Bort, boart, or boort is an umbrella term used in the diamond industry to refer to shards of non- gem-grade/quality diamonds. In the manufacturing and heavy industries, "bort" is used to describe dark, imperfectly formed or crystallized diamond ...

) is a

diamond Diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Diamond is tasteless, odourless, strong, brittle solid, colourless in pure form, a poor conductor of e ...

industry term for roughly spherical shards of non-

gem A gemstone (also called a fine gem, jewel, precious stone, semiprecious stone, or simply gem) is a piece of mineral crystal which, when cut or polished, is used to make jewelry or other adornments. Certain rocks (such as lapis lazuli, opal, an ...

-grade diamond, mostly mined in

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. A ballas is an aggregate of diamond grains concentrically arranged with radiating structure into a roughly spherical stone with a fibrous texture and without throughgoing cleavage planes. Tougher and more difficult to cleave than crystalline stones, ballas are used as

industrial diamonds Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Diamond is tasteless, odourless, strong, brittle solid, colourless in pure form, a poor conductor of electricity, and insol ...

References

Diamond industry {{mineral-stub