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UW-Platteville chemistry professor Jim Hamilton used a solution he developed to clean the legendary Hope Diamond at the Smithsonian Institution in December.

PLATTEVILLE - Not everyone can say they've held $250 million in their hands. University of Wisconsin-Platteville professor Jim Hamilton did for 15 minutes. This past December, the associate professor of chemistry traveled to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where he demonstrated how a substance he developed could be used to clean large gems. Days later, he found himself cleaning the Hope Diamond, arguably the most famous jewel in the entire world.

It all began at a UW-Platteville chemistry reunion this past fall when Hamilton was talking with Jeffrey Post, a 1976 UWP alumnus who is now the curator of the National Gem and Mineral Collection at the Smithsonian. Post invited Hamilton to the Smithsonian to use his cleaning solution on some of the facility's exquisite gems.

"He mentioned one of the big problems they have when they are looking at gems - there's always some residual dust. This process is safer, and it works so much better," Hamilton said.

UW-Platteville alumnus Jeffrey Post (left) invited UWP professor Jim Hamilton (right) to the Smithsonian Institution in December. Hamilton used a cleaning solution he developed to clean the Hope Diamond, arguably the most famous jewel in the world.

Hamilton developed the cleaning solution, First Contact Polymer, with a colleague, Paul Chen. The substance is used on hard-to-clean and often delicate surfaces such as telescope mirrors and optical devices. The First Contact Polymer is applied to the object, where it dries and adheres itself to the surface. Pulling the dried polymer from the surface removes dust and other tiny particles. In early December, Hamilton traveled to Washington, D.C., and used the process to clean a number of Smithsonian gems, among them a 350-carat blue topaz. Post was pleased with what he saw.

"We tried it out on a couple different kinds of gemstones. It seems to work very well. We're still in the early stages of trying to assess on how well it works, but from what we've looked at so far, I think it's been very impressive," Post said.

It worked so well that Post asked Hamilton if he would return a few days later to clean the Hope Diamond, the Smithsonian's prize jewel.

"It turned out in this case we were taking a series of photographs that were going to be high resolution, so we wanted to make sure that this diamond was as clean as it could be," Post said.

Under the careful eye of security guards, Hamilton went to work on the precious jewel. The Hope Diamond has a legendary history involving European kings, theft, the French Revolution and a threat of a curse, and the Smithsonian has kept the jewel under heavy security since it took possession of the stone in 1958. While Hamilton was cleaning the diamond, Smithsonian officials realized the stone was erroneously scheduled for an important showing at the same time. Under pressure to clean the gem quickly, Hamilton applied the First Contact Polymer and pressed the diamond between his hands for 15 minutes to speed the drying process. "I've probably held the hope diamond longer than anyone since Mrs. McLean," Hamilton said.

Washington socialite Evelyn McLean was the last owner of the famed diamond to wear it in public, which she did until her death in 1947. It was then bought by diamond merchant Harry Winston, who later donated it to the Smithsonian. The jewel takes its name from a former owner, Henry Philip Hope.

The diamond weighs 45 carats, and is thought to be a remnant of a much larger 112-carat blue diamond discovered in India in the seventeenth century. That diamond was later cut into the famous "French Blue" and served as the crown jewel of the French Royal Family for more than a century. The diamond was lost as King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette fled the throne in 1792, and resurfaced in England years later. Today, the Hope Diamond is described as being simply priceless. Some venture to estimate its worth at a quarter of a billion dollars.

"It's one of these things where it's one of a kind, and only if you were going to put it up for auction would you find out how much someone would pay for it on any given day," Post said. "No amount of money would replace it, so in that sense it is priceless."

By all accounts, the First Contact Polymer did its job. The photographs taken that day of the Hope Diamond will be used in a 3-D computer display of the gem, and other photos will be used in an upcoming television program about the diamond on the A&E network.

Hamilton is excited about future opportunities to use his solution on difficult-to-clean surfaces. Later this year, Hamilton will travel to Hawaii to clean the mirror surfaces of the world's largest telescopes at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, and he plans to soon market the First Contact Polymer through his company Photonic Cleaning Technologies.

Contact: Jim Hamilton, associate professor of chemistry, 608-342-1670, hamiltoj@uwplatt.edu

Prepared by: Dan Lehnherr, UWP Public Relations, 608-342-1194, lehnherd@uwplatt.edu