Coal

Sebastian Foxley <bowtieseb [at] hotmail__com> writes

>We have a piece of coal in our collection, which was mounted on a
>pack to commemorate the opening of a mine.  The coal is now
>suffering from what we think is pyrite disease; yellow spots have
>appeared on the surface, the coal is splitting and braking apart and
>some of the coal has deteriorated into a grey powder.  Acid free
>paper next to the worst affected parts of the object has also become
>yellow and brittle.
>
>Is there anything I can do to stabilize this object or prevent to
>similar items going the same way.

Packaging the object in a transparent envelope in which the oxygen
and (perhaps) moisture have been removed might halt the
deterioration.  This can be done with appropriate absorbers
(Ageless, RP, etc.) and barrier films (eg Escal). More information
is available at <URL:http://www.keepsafe.ca>

Jerry Shiner
Microclimate Technologies International
800-683-4696
416-703-4696


                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 18:1
                  Distributed: Thursday, June 17, 2004
                        Message Id: cdl-18-1-003
                                  ***