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Thank you for your response. Very interesting. I gave a copy of your email to our paper conservator as well. We'll have to get the articles you mentioned.
Thanks again,
Jennifer
>>> Season Tse <Season_Tse@xxxxxxxxx> 07/11/07 2:17 PM >>> Hi Jennifer, I love to hear about different experiences with textile deacidification from list members. There are a number of studies looking into the effects/benefits of deacidification on textiles (see list below for a few examples). But I am not aware of textile conservators using deacidification routinely as a treatment for acidic textiles. While the benefits of deacidification for paper is well established, there are a few reservations (not all are proven risks under treatment conditions) for use on textiles that has kept the treatment from being use routinely. Deacidification are used on acidic textiles to neutralize the acids in hope of prolonging their useful lives - so it is not always needed, many textiles that have been laundered in the past (eg. tablecloths and pillow cases) are already neutral or slightly alkaline in pH. Or if a textile is already very brittle or powdering from acid hydrolysis, deacidification is not going to add to its useful life, therefore in my opinion, it is not needed. Deacidification is typically used on cellulosic textiles only, because of reservations about using alkaline solutions or leaving alkaline buffering agents on protein fibres. If there are any colourants or silk embroidery etc on the textile, there are always concerns of colour change with deacidification, or its effect on silk. For very degraded/weak cellulosic textiles, other than the fact that deacidification would not reverse its physical state, there is the added risk of further damage caused by high alkaline hydroxide solutions. Some have suggested that introducing calcium and magnesium ions to the textile may attract dust. So for all or some of these reasons, deacidification of textiles is not routinely used. If deacidification is required, magnesium bicarbonate would be a safer reagent than calcium hydroxide mainly because of the pH of the aqueous solution. Hydroxides have a much higher pH and there are higher risk of colour change of alkaline sensitive colourants on the textiles, also for degraded cellulosic textiles. Bicarbonate solutions are more laborious to prepare but the solutions are not alkaline - even though the final magnesium carbonate buffer remaining on the textile is alkaline. Some articles related to deacidification of textiles: 1. Nancy Kerr and her co-authors have studied the effect of calcium hydroxide and magnesium bicarbonate, morpholine, and non aqueous methoxy magnesium methyl carbonate (WeiT'o spray) on cellulosic textiles. Kerr, N.; Jennings, T.; Méthé, E.; "Long-term stability of cellulosic textiles: effect of alkaline deacidifying agents on naturally aged cellulosic textiles" Historic Textile and Paper Materials II: Conservation and Characterization. Developed from a symposium sponsored by the Cellulose, Paper and Textile Division at the 196th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Los Angeles, California, September 25-30, 1988 Zeronian, S. Haig; Needles, Howard L. (Editor); (ACS Symposium Series 410) Washington: American Chemical Society, 1989 Pp.143-158 Kerr, Nancy; Hersh, Solomon; Tucker, Paul A., "The use of alkaline-buffering agents to retard the degradation of cotton textiles" Science and technology in the service of conservation. Preprints of the contributions to the Washington congress, 3-9 September 1982 (1982) Pp.100-103 2. Ira Block included calcium hydroxide in his research Block, Ira, "The effect of an alkaline rinse on the aging of cellulosic textiles. Part IV" Science and technology in the service of conservation. Preprints of the contributions to the Washington congress, 3-9 September 1982 (1982) Pp.96-99 3. Peacock, Elizabeth E, "Deacidification of degraded linen" Studies in conservation Vol.28 No.1 (1983) Pp.8-14 4. At CCI we have studied extensively the effect of washing and deacidification on paper and cellulosic textiles. For textiles we didn't use deacidification chemicals to neutralize acids but rather to see if adding low concentrations of magnesium bicarbonate and the neutral magnesium sulphate salts to wash water would benefit cotton and linen textiles. Tse, Season "Wash water quality requirements for textile conservation: an overview of Canadian Conservation Institute research" Strengthening the bond: science & textiles. Preprints of the North American Textiles Conference 2002, Philadelphia: North American Textile Conservation Conference, 2002 Pp.143-151 - Low concentrations of magnesium sulphate and magnesium bicarbonate in wash water to improve washing. The article also summarizes the results from CCI's washing and deacidification research. Season Season Tse Senior Conservation Scientist/Chemist Conservation Research Canadian Conservation Institute Canadian Heritage 1030 Innes Rd. Ottawa, ON Canada K1A 0M5 Tel: (613) 998-3721 x-187 Fax:(613) 998-4721 email: season_tse@xxxxxxxxx Websites: www.cci-icc.gc.ca & www.preservation.gc.ca
Hello everyone, I was talking to our paper conservator today about the deacidification of paper. He was wondering if textile conservators use similar chemicals to deacidify textiles. They use Calcium Hydroxide or Magnesium Bicarbonate. I had never heard of using these chemicals with textiles. Does anyone know if these, or similar chemicals are ever used in the treatment of textiles? Thanks, Jennifer Jennifer Hadley Collections Care Museum of Church History and Art (801) 240-0297 hadleyj@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message. NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message. |