ArtSorb

Barry Knight <barry.knight [at] bl__uk> writes

>Does anybody know whether Art-Sorb silica gel really contains lithium
>chloride?  Christoph Waller's website <URL:http://www.cwaller.de>
>has a MSDS which lists lithium chloride as one of the constituents,
>but I have never heard of this before.  I have some old data sheets,
>but it's not mentioned there.  All technical information has
>vanished from the Fuji Silysia website:

Indeed all types of Art Sorb contain lithium chloride: beads and
sheets. This has been confirmed by my own tests and most recently by
Charlotta Bylund Melin in her graduating thesis "ART SORB and PRO
SORB--a comparative study of two silica gels...", Goeteborg
University 2005. Fuji Silysia confirmed this fact to me orally but
they never disclosed this information officially. We provided this
information along with warnings about possible corrosive effects in
all technical information since around 1998 and also on our webpage
<URL:http://www.cwaller.de/eartsorb.htm>.

Lithium chloride is a corrosive substance for many metals so it
should certainly not be in contact with artwork. Handling ART SORB
beads and sheets might liberate corrosive dusts which might be
harmful for museum objects. The corrosive nature of Art Sorb was one
of the reasons why we replaced Art Sorb by our product PRO SORB
which we distribute since 2002, cf.
<URL:http://www.cwaller.de/eprosorb.htm>

    **** Moderator's comments: Just a plaintiff little note on
    spelling. In order to facilitate online indexing and searching,
    I generally try to keep spelling consistent in Subject lines,
    using AAT whenever possible (and generally to honor the authors
    spelling in the body of the message). In this case AAT has
    nothing, AATA uses both Art-Sorb and ArtSorb, JAIC style guide
    has Art-Sorb, the Fuji Silysia site has Artsorb. In the past, my
    spelling authority list has had Art-Sorb, however I see that I
    entered Barry Knight's posting under ArtSorb. For the sake of
    consistency, I will probably continue the tradition of
    hopelessly erratic spellings. What is a poor moderator to do?
    Sigh.

Christoph Waller
Long Life for Art
Im Buckle 4
D - 79288 Gottenheim
+49 7665 94 03 90
Fax: +49 7665 94 03 91


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 19:39
                Distributed: Thursday, February 23, 2006
                       Message Id: cdl-19-39-005
                                  ***