Performance of Pollutant Adsorbents

Research leading to new options for increasing the protection of objects in display cases from air pollutants

Project Details

About

Goal

Over the last 30 years, there has been interest in the role pollutants play in the deterioration of art located indoors and within indoor microenvironments. There has been much work to design hermetically sealed display cases with inert materials and to use barrier films to restrict materials off-gassing. Performance of Pollutant Adsorbents sought to broaden the options available to conservators by researching the use of adsorbents to intercept pollutants.

Outcomes

Background

The last thirty years have seen increased interest in the role pollutants play in the deterioration of works of art indoors and within indoor microenvironments. Much work has been carried out in designing hermetically sealed display cases with inert materials and in the use of barrier films to restrict materials off-gassing—read The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly by Jean Tétreault for more (see Related section). However, the use of adsorbents to intercept pollutants—matching adsorbent capacities to specific gasses and determining how long these materials last—had never been systematically explored.