Anoxia

Marcela Rossello de las Casas <marcelarossello [at] hotmail__com> writes

>I am interested in getting a fumigation chamber, I recall reading
>about an oxygen fumigation chamber called something like the Bubble.

Freezing is of course a good alternative, but not always. Low oxygen
treatment has now been used in many museums all over the world and
has advantages in certain cases of treatment. There are many
publications on the subject (see e.g. "Integrated Pest Management
for Collections. Proceedings of 2001: A Pest Odyssey, London 1-3 Oct
2001", "Proc. 3rd Nordic Symposium on Insect Pest Control in
Museums. Stockholm September 24-25-1998. PRE-MAL and ICOM" and
references therein). Bubbles from Rentokill work very well, but you
can also use plastic with low permeability for oxygen and tailor
your own bag (you need a heat-sealer for this).

It is true that Argon gives shorter exposure times than Nitrogen,
but Argon is so much more expensive that there is much more cost
than benefit. For supply of Nitrogen you may use a flask cylinder or
a Nitrogen generator (e.g. VELOXY). For more information on this
please contact us from our home-page
<URL:http://www.nrm.se/re/premal/welcome.html.en>

During a treatment with low oxygen, please beware be aware of the
risk for too low oxygen rate in the inhaled air (the risk is
extremely low at proper use of the method).

Jan-Erik Bergh and
Monika Akerlund, PRE-MAL


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 15:59
               Distributed: Wednesday, February 27, 2002
                       Message Id: cdl-15-59-010
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