Re: Cleaning of Adipocere

[Sarah Lowengard <sarahl@xxxxxxxxx>]

I'm sending this email on behalf of Tom Klaas, at Testfabrics, who sent
the query  about cleaning grave goods (?) to Dave McCall a colleague who
describes himself as a "laundry" chemist.  I've deleted a number of
administrative messages,  and McCall's notes follow what I excavated of
the original post.

Sarah
Sarah Lowengard
Conservation Consultant, Testfabrics
New York, NY

-------- Original Message --------

From: Joonsuk OH <ohjoonsuk@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:ohjoonsuk@xxxxxxxxx>>
. . .
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 18:48:49 +0900 (KST)
From: =?euc-kr?q?=BF=C0=20=C1=D8=BC=AE?= <kcommune@xxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:kcommune@xxxxxxxxxxx>>
Subject: Cleaning of Adipocere
To: texcons@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:texcons@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Message-ID: <57698.77239.qm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:57698.77239.qm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>>

I am looking for cleaning method of excavated costumes which is
contaminated by corpse. Contaminant is adipocere which is composed of
calcium salf of fatty acid.

Do anyone know cleaning method? Thanks.

.............................................................

response from Dave McCall:

But first, this chemical question.  My first inclination is to say that
it's a fairly easy question.  All you need to clean up a calcium soap
is a good chelant.  EDTA is the workhorse of all industries forever.

Sodium tripolyphosphate would do the job as well.  On the more expensive
side, with not much more than that to recommend them that, are the
phosphonates, such as the Dequests.

I would think you would want to treat the goods with a mildly alkaline
solution of one of these chelants.  The chelant will capture the
calcium, leaving the soap as the sodium or potassium salt, which is
soluble under the mildly basic conditions.  The soap becomes its own
cleaning agent.

But, I can think of one possible horrible side effect.  It's quite
possible that a strong chelant will remove metal atoms from dyes and
destroy the color.  That's no issue with modern fabrics and maybe it's
not an issue with old dyes either, but I don't know enough about them to
be sure. Someone who understands the chemistry of old dye technology
needs to ponder that before applying a strong chelant to anything.

If strong chelants prove problematic, I would suggest trying the same
thing with a much weaker chelant to do the same job.  I would be
thinking about citrate.  It will take longer, but I'm guessing they have
more time to deal with this situation than they typically give me to get
a load of laundry througha washer.

Let me know what they think.  This is the answer of an old laundry
chemist.  Maybe it's way off base for a conservator.