Analytical Techniques

Conservators will find a seemingly endless number of analytical techniques in the conservation literature or may even have access to some of them themselves. This tutorial covers the most common analytical techniques that are available to analytical chemists:

• Spectroscopy and spectrometry
• Chromatography
• Scanning Electron Microscopy
• The X factors (XRF, XRD, EDS)

Understanding analytical techniques requires a knowledge of basic atomic structure and chemical bonding. Organic Chemistry I for Dummies by Arthur Winter is a useful information source.

After completing this tutorial, you will be able to:

• Describe the kind of information you can learn about a material through different analytical techniques
• Understand how absorption of energy is key to gaining information from spectroscopic methods
• Recognize that chromatographic techniques are used primarily for separating mixtures of compounds
• Know which techniques destroy the sample and which do not
• Differentiate among the uses for x-ray techniques

 Enter tutorial.

Useful links on this topic:

• Guinier, A.; X-Ray Diffraction: In Crystals, Imperfect Crystals, and Amorphous Bodies; Dover: Mineola, New York , 1994.
• Hardy, James K.; Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry an online tutorial; University of Akron.
• International Centre for Diffraction Data (ICDD)
• Warren, B. E.; X-ray Diffraction; Dover: Mineola, New York, 1990 .
• Whittaker, D.; Interpreting Organic Spectra; Royal Society of Chemistry: London, England, 2000.
• Winter, Arthur; Organic Chemistry I for Dummies; For Dummies;Hoboken, New Jersey, 2005.
  
• JAIC Online.
• Kavenagh, Claudia; Wheeler, George; "Evaluation of cleaning methods for the exterior brick at the Brooklyn Historical Society"; JAIC 2003, 42 (1), 97-112.
• Leona, Marco; Casadio, Francesca; Bacci, Mauro; Picollo, Marcello; Identification of the Pre-Columbian pigment Maya blue on works of art by non-invasive UV-Vis and Raman spectroscopic techniques"; JAIC 2004, 43 (1),39-54.
• Lomax, Suzanne Quillen; Fisher, Sarah L.; "An investigation of the removability of naturally aged synthetic picture varnishes“; JAIC 1990, 29 (2),181-191.
• Rodriguez-Navarro, Carlos; Hansen, Eric; Sebastian, Eduardo; Ginell, William S.; "The role of clays in the decay of ancient Egyptian limestone sculptures"; JAIC 1997, 36 (2), 151-163.
• Schilling, Michael R.; Khanjian, Herant P.; "Gas Chromatographic analysis of amino acids as ethyl chloroformate derivatives"; JAIC 1996, 35 (2), 123-144.
• Schweppe, Helmut; "Identification of dyes on old textiles"" JAIC 1979, 19 (1), 14-23.