Anoxic chambers

We are planning a permanent, walk-in sized anoxic chamber in a
proposed offsite storage facility.  We were under the impression
that this was not an atypical situation in newer heritage
facilities, but were recently given a very different impression by
our architects who have referred to it as "ground breaking," and
subsequently, mentioned numerous engineering and safety challenges.
I'd be interested in talking to others who are indeed using
permanent chambers about their experiences.

We had also hedged out bets on choosing either nitrogen or carbon
dioxide, and asked for the chamber to be built to accommodate
either, due to questions we still had about the varying costs,
treatment times and effectiveness of each.  The architects and
engineers are steering us heavily towards nitrogen now, based
largely on safety concerns presented by the CO2.  It seems to me as
though they are saying that with the concentration of CO2 used for
effective anoxic treatment, were there a problem with the anoxic
chamber, it might cause instant, grievous harm to staff but that
this is not likely the case if nitrogen were in use.  I'm curious to
know if anyone can comment on this issue in particular, or more
generally about their choice of either nitrogen vs carbon dioxide,
and why they employed a particular treatment.

Katie Mullen
Preservation Coordinator
Library-Archives
Wisconsin Historical Society
816 State Street
Madison, WI  53706-1482
608-264-6489

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 27:32
                Distributed: Thursday, February 20, 2014
                       Message Id: cdl-27-32-032
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