Superman can squeeze a lump of coal and turn it into a sparkling diamond—in comic books, anyway. There is some scientific validity to this fictional feat. Coal and diamonds are both composed of carbon. The two materials differ in their microscopic arrangement of atoms, and that leads to quite a difference in appearance, conductivity, hardness and other properties.
Click here for original story, Researchers fabricate polyacrylonitrile-derived carbon films and fibers at high temperature
Source: Phys.org