What the EMF Research Actually Shows
Shungite is sold almost everywhere as EMF protection, usually with numbers that nobody sources. There is real measurement behind some of it. There is also a great deal of nonsense. This is our attempt to separate the two, including where it costs us.
Start with why people ask
The official position on radiofrequency electromagnetic fields is more cautious than enthusiasts claim and less reassuring than sceptics claim. In 2011 the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as Group 2B, "possibly carcinogenic to humans" — a category based on limited evidence, which also contains around 250 other agents including pickled vegetables.
That classification has not changed since. IARC has flagged radiofrequency fields as a high priority for re-evaluation, and the WHO has funded a set of systematic reviews to inform it. Meanwhile national regulators — Germany's Federal Office for Radiation Protection among them — state that on current knowledge no health impairment is expected from high-frequency fields provided exposure limits are observed.
So: officially uncertain, officially monitored, and not officially dangerous within limits. People who would rather have less RF around them are not being irrational, and they are also not being told by any regulator that they need protection. Both things are true.
What shungite measurably does
Here the evidence is better than most sellers realise, because they cite the wrong things.
Work by V. V. Rodionov measured the microwave absorption of type III shungite from the Zazhoginsky deposit — classic black shungite, the same grade sold as pyramids and pendants, not elite. Across the range 12.6 to 40 GHz, samples absorbed between 9.5 and 44.5 dB.
Decibels are unintuitive, so in plain terms:
| Absorption | Share of energy absorbed | Passing through |
|---|---|---|
| 9.5 dB | ≈ 88.78% | ≈ 11.22% |
| 20 dB | 99% | 1% |
| 44.5 dB | ≈ 99.9965% | ≈ 0.0035% |
At the top of that range, of the microwave energy entering the sample, about one part in twenty-eight thousand came out the other side.
Why it works — and why it isn't C60
The mechanism is not exotic. Shungite conducts electricity, and conductive carbon absorbs electromagnetic energy and dissipates it as heat. That is the same principle behind the absorber material lining anechoic test chambers, and behind patents covering shungite-based absorbing materials — Russian Federation patent 2255866 and US patents 6818821 and 6937184 among them.
You will very often read that this is due to fullerene C60. We do not think that holds up, and the reason comes from the same study: Rodionov compared natural shungite at 33.62% carbon against purified carbon at 95–98%, and the two absorbed comparably. If absorption tracked a trace constituent, that result would be very strange. It looks like a bulk property of conductive carbon, which is a duller explanation and a sturdier one.
It is worth saying plainly: a claim that shungite converts electromagnetic radiation into "positive ions" has no mechanism behind it and we can find no research supporting it. Claims invoking dark matter are not physics at all — dark matter, by definition, does not interact electromagnetically.
Where 5G actually sits
5G runs in two broad territories. Sub-6 GHz bands do most of the coverage work, typically around 3.3–3.8 GHz in Europe. Millimetre-wave 5G runs much higher — roughly 24 to 40 GHz.
That upper territory sits squarely inside the 12.6–40 GHz band in which shungite's absorption was measured. The sub-6 bands sit below the tested range, so the honest answer there is that the published figures don't speak to it directly.
The limits, stated plainly
This is the part that other sellers leave out, and it is the part that makes the rest credible.
- Absorption depends on mass and geometry. Those figures come from measured samples of material in a test setup. A pendant is not that setup.
- Nothing shields a room unless it encloses the room. A stone on a desk does not create a protective field around your home. Anechoic chambers work because the absorber covers every surface.
- Absorbing a beam in a lab is not the same as reducing your exposure in a house, where signal arrives from every direction and reflects off everything.
- We make no health claim. Measured absorption is a material property. A health benefit is a different kind of claim requiring a different kind of evidence, and that evidence does not exist.
So what are you actually buying? A certified natural mineral, from the only deposit of its kind on Earth, that genuinely conducts electricity and genuinely absorbs microwave energy in laboratory measurement — placed wherever you want it. Many of our customers keep a piece by the router because they like knowing what it is. That is a good enough reason to own a beautiful two-billion-year-old stone, and we would rather sell it to you on those terms than on invented ones.
Sources
IARC classification of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as Group 2B, 2011 — unchanged as of 2026, re-evaluation pending WHO systematic reviews. Regulatory position per Germany's Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz (BfS). Microwave absorption measurements: V. V. Rodionov, type III shungite, Zazhoginsky deposit, 12.6–40 GHz. Absorbing-material patents: RU 2255866; US 6818821; US 6937184. Decibel-to-percentage conversions are arithmetic (absorbed = 1 − 10−dB/10).