Monitoring the accumulated water soluble airborne compounds deposited on surfaces of showcases and walls in museums, archives and historical buildings

Abstract

Background: Cultural heritage objects are subject to the deposition of a multitude of airborne pollutants even when kept inside museums, archives, historical buildings or showcases. Some of the pollutants are quickly deposited onto any available surface, including the interior walls and CH objects themselves. This might make the compounds seem absent from analyses of indoor air samples.Context and purpose of the study: A new method of detecting water soluble pollutants without taking samples from the interior walls or from the CH objects themselves has been developed. The method involves sampling the pollutants accumulated on a surface near the CH object, e.g. a nearby wall or an interior glass surface of a showcase. The samples were obtained by gently flushing the surface with deionised water to collect the ions readily removed from the surface. The method was tested on a variety of surfaces. . The resulting concentrations were converted to µEq, providing the ionic balance and the relative amounts of the ions and elements present. Ionic balance was observed on smooth and inert surfaces, but in some cases the chemistry of the wall contributed to the flush water. Solid samples of some of the surfaces have been analysed by XRF to clarify these more complex situations. Conclusions:Clear results appear from smooth or well defined surfaces, whereas more complex situations arise when the underlying surface itself contributes to the flush water. The method is working very well and is easy and cheap to implement by curators and conservators, who can the send the flush water to specialized laboratories. Brief summary:A new methodology capable of monitoring the accumulated airborne deposits on surfaces in showcases and historic buildings is presented and tested. The method is cheap and is easy to implement by curators and conservators and allows the assessment of threats to the CH objects which are not always observed by analyses of the indoor air.

Reactive Chlorine Emissions from Cleaning and Reactive Nitrogen Chemistry in an Indoor Athletic Facility

“…In the presence of surface chloride, ClNO 2 could form heterogeneously via . Chloride is commonly found on indoor surfaces through the transfer of skin salts from human contact, deposition of gaseous or particulate chlorine, − or chlorine-based cleaners …”

Chapter 9. Chromatography

“…The above-mentioned chromatographic methods are all for organic compounds, but there is one particularly useful LC technique called ion exchange chromatograph (IC) for soluble cationic and anionic inorganic compounds in heritage collections and spaces. IC has been applied to the quantification of air-borne pollutants in library and museums environments namely the acetate, nitrate, sulphate and chloride anions (NO 3 -, SO 4 2− , Cl − ) and calcium, sodium, and ammonium anions (Ca 2+ , Na + , NH 4 + ) deposited on the surfaces of walls and showcases in archives using IC and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (Skytte, Rasmussen, Svensmark, Ryhl-Svendsen, & Brimblecombe, 2017) and to inherent degradation compounds in cellulosic plastics (Mazurek et al, 2019;. The mobile phase is aqueous and can be a miscible organic solvent like acetonitrile or an aqueous soluble salt like sodium carbonate (Na 2 CO 3 ) with sodium hydrogen carbonate (bicarbonate) NaHCO 3 , or mixtures, and elution method gradient or isocratic.…”

Digital holographic interferometry for cultural heritage structural diagnostics: A coherent and a low‐coherence optical set‐up for the study of a marquetry sample

“…In the past years, a lot of scientific and engineering work in the field of cultural heritage has been dedicated to the preservation and rectification of valuable pieces of art of unsurpassed historical importance, from a steady and gradual unavoidable deterioration; the latter is naturally induced little by little due to ageing and environmental influences, or less gradually due to human intervention, accidents, and abrupt damages, forcing the materials to continuously adjust to new conditions . The diagnosis and detailed analysis of the state of an object is an essential part of the conservation protocol concerning the documentation of both mobile and immobile art works and structures, and before any conservation and/or restoration procedure takes place.…”