Iron and steel

As part of my research work as PhD student, I am involved in a
project dealing with restoration and conservation of iron/steel
archeological artifacts using high-tech vacuum technologies and
plasma processing for :

    1.  treating the akaganeite layer of chloride containing
        corrosion material on the object and converting it into some
        sort of denser oxide such as magnetite. This process is much
        quicker than ordinary chemical treatments and more able to
        preserve delicate surface features of the object. There
        already exists some literature on the topic but it is very
        scarce

    2.  treating the clean object with a treatment that deposits a
        thin, invisible, watertight and airtight carbon-containing
        film. This work well for vacuum-plasma treatments of modern
        objects made with modern technology, and should work also
        for the preservation of restored artifacts. No literature
        could be found.

We are searching for information on that kind of treatment, to know
whether it has already been used or if someone is thinking about it,
if there is literature on the topic,... All info is welcome.

As you may remark, my background is materials and surface
engineering and not quite preservation-restoration, so please accept
my apologies if the way I ask my questions look strange. Thank you
for your help,

Patrick Toussaint
Universite Libre de Bruxelles
Service Metallurgie-Electrochimie CP165
Avenue F.D. Roosevelt 50
B-1050 Bruxelles
Belgium

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 11:20
                 Distributed: Thursday, August 28, 1997
                       Message Id: cdl-11-20-013
                                  ***