ABSTRACT
More than 50 years ago, nanodiamonds (NDs) were first discovered in Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR), where they were produced by detonation reaction of carbon-based explosives. They remained essentially unknown to the rest of the world, for many reasons including security and the lack of industrial interests, until the end of the 1980s. A number of important discoveries in the late 1990s led to a wide interest in these nanoparticles (Figure 23.1). By then, mass production of NDs had already started in different countries (Osawa 2010).
