How to clean Dioptase?

Hi how do i clean dioptase thanks Jon.

Water at room temperature and a toothbrush. It's not safe to use most chemicals on Dioptase.

What are you trying to clean off of it?

Jolyon

For best results, show us a picture or at least tell us what it is you want to clean off your dioptase?

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

dark limonite stain,rust stain the dioptase is from congo,it is about 3x3x3 with many small xls
right i use my monster ultrasonic to clean it,the ultrasonic can hold minerals up to foot long
i got free at the medicla building i work at they where to pitch but it works jon.

be very careful with an ultrasonic cleaner. if too much energy goes into the cleaner, the whole specimen might fall apart. the Congo stuff is quite brittle. Rolf

For removing iron stains/limonite from dioptase you can use Iron Out much like you would to clean iron stains from Quartz. See the directions the Iron Out/Waller section of this article. First however use a high pressure fabric gun to remove as much crud from the specimen as you can. You can make the waller solution warm and put that in your ultrasonic and that may spead the process. Sometimes the "iron staining" is mixed with tough impacted fine grained "clay" minerals and you may need to repeat the process several time and you still may not be sucessfull. If you suspect that there may be some carbonate mineral on the specimen you may wish to try and remove it with a 10% Nitric acid solution. Nitric acid is the only common acid that will not damage the dioptase, the others will. Can you scrape any of the offending crud off with a knife or needle point? Is the dioptase underneath shiny?

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Hi cannot scrape off because the crystals are small,but the ultrasonic worked thanks for the help.Jon