{"title":"Mass Treatment of Flooded Archival Materials by Gamma Radiation","authors":"M. Montanari, S. Pipponzi, Pietro Livi, A. Prodi","doi":"10.1515/res-2021-0007","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This work describes mass recovery processes of flooded archival materials at industrial scale. The presence of fungi on paper represents a threat to the integrity of the document because they degrade cellulose, one of the main components of paper. Gamma radiation treatments are investigated as mass disinfection agents for their high penetrating power, speed of treatment, and absence of risk due to chemical residuals. We compared two different recovery processes: thermal drying followed by gamma irradiation and gamma irradiation followed by thermal drying. Both these processes were conducted simultaneously on naturally contaminated archival items and on paper specimens artificially contaminated with test species. Efficacy was assessed by culture method and ATP assay, right after the treatments and after four years of storage at room temperature. Coupling gamma irradiation with a drying step with dry heat at 55–60 °C reduces the fungal loads on natural items up to levels close to the detection limits, and the reduction is maintained after four years. On artificial specimens, spore germination is completely inhibited, mycelia growth is also highly affected, but the melanised test species appear to be more resistant. A synergistic effect between gamma irradiation, water content, and thermal drying is highlighted in this paper.","PeriodicalId":21154,"journal":{"name":"Restaurator. International Journal for the Preservation of Library and Archival Material","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7000,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Restaurator. International Journal for the Preservation of Library and Archival Material","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1515/res-2021-0007","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"INFORMATION SCIENCE & LIBRARY SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract This work describes mass recovery processes of flooded archival materials at industrial scale. The presence of fungi on paper represents a threat to the integrity of the document because they degrade cellulose, one of the main components of paper. Gamma radiation treatments are investigated as mass disinfection agents for their high penetrating power, speed of treatment, and absence of risk due to chemical residuals. We compared two different recovery processes: thermal drying followed by gamma irradiation and gamma irradiation followed by thermal drying. Both these processes were conducted simultaneously on naturally contaminated archival items and on paper specimens artificially contaminated with test species. Efficacy was assessed by culture method and ATP assay, right after the treatments and after four years of storage at room temperature. Coupling gamma irradiation with a drying step with dry heat at 55–60 °C reduces the fungal loads on natural items up to levels close to the detection limits, and the reduction is maintained after four years. On artificial specimens, spore germination is completely inhibited, mycelia growth is also highly affected, but the melanised test species appear to be more resistant. A synergistic effect between gamma irradiation, water content, and thermal drying is highlighted in this paper.
期刊介绍:
Restaurator is the only international periodical specializing exclusively in the conservation of library and archive materials. Articles examine the many important aspects of this subject area, such as technology, practical experience and organization. They also focus on scientific basics: Many articles deal with the development of new preservation techniques and the improvement and better understanding of established methods. The articles are written in English with summaries in English, French and German. By reading Restaurator regularly, librarians, archivists and restorers can keep up to date with the latest research and developments. The editorial committee is made up of experts from well-known institutions and organizations from all over the world