simulant

plural simulants

1. Something that simulates something else such as a gemstone.

   Due to its low cost and close visual likeness to diamond, cubic zirconia has remained the most gemologically and economically important diamond simulant since 1976.

   2 more examples

   He could invent a fictional restaurant for you to bite your burger at but any fictional restaurant would be, like Nomenex, a worthless simulant or inconcinne imitation, a placebic generic.

   2012, Joshua Cohen, Four New Messages

   The soil sample, called LZS-1, is the latest in a list of lunar regolith simulants of varying quality that have been developed to help Nasa and other space agencies around the world prepare for missions to the Moon.

   2023 April 25, Dhananjay Khadilkar, “Why scientists are making fake Moon dust”, in BBC

1. not comparablebiologySimulating, replacing, or having the form or appearance of something else.