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One of the most important materials presenting and witnessing human culture is paper. The cleaning of paper is often necessary because contamination must be removed so that the fragile organic substrate can be preserved. The conventional cleaning methods are mechanical or involve the application of chemicals. These methods can damage drawings or print layers to some extent or make the original paper substrate brittle. More specifically, the use of a scalpel blade can cause damage to fibers. Chemical cleaning is difficult to perform locally, can dissolve foreign matter that then migrates into the paper substrate, or involves volatile organic compounds that can be harmful to the conservator. There is, therefore, a need for new conservation technologies aimed at the safe cleaning of paper. Lasers have proved to be an appropriate tool for cleaning as the energy dose and penetration depth at the specific point of contamination can be controlled. Additionally, if used properly, laser cleaning is not destructive to the paper.
Paper is one of the most important materials representing and witnessing human culture particularly as a carrier medium for text and image. As soiling hampers the reception of information, paper cleaning techniques are needed. Traditional mechanical and chemical cleaning methods are used by conservator-restorers. In some cases, a classical cleaning procedure of paper objects yields unsatisfactory results or a conventional treatment is even impossible. Especially, fragile paper objects cause problems due to mechanical instabilities. Laser cleaning as a non-contact method might be a way to overcome some of the limitations of classical cleaning techniques. Laser parameters have to be chosen to achieve removal of the soiling without influencing the artwork. Any immediate as well as long-term effects causing an irreversible change of the artwork have to be avoided. At present, most laser applications are found in stone and metal conservation, while laser treatment of complex organic materials like paper is still not fully developed for application in conservators' workshops. This contribution describes recent work of pulsed laser cleaning of soiled model samples. Pure cellulose, rag paper and wood-pulp paper were mechanically soiled with pulverized charcoal in a standardized procedure to make model samples representing essential characteristics of contaminated real-world artworks. Afterwards, model samples were cleaned using short and ultrashort laser pulses in the nanosecond and femtosecond time domain, respectively. An extensive analysis of the model samples after laser treatment using an optical microscope and a multi-spectral imaging system allows a comparison of the cleaning results obtained with both laser sources.
Decontamination of biocidal loaded wooden artworks
using femtosecond and nanosecond laser processing
(2017)
Until the end of the 1980s many wooden artworks underwent surface treatment by liquid preservatives, e.g. Hylotox-59. As a result, DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) crystal structures are formed on the wood surfaces by the "blooming" of chlorine compounds. In addition to an aesthetic disturbance, it is assumed that DDT represents a health risk. Even decades after applying, the toxins in the wood preservatives are still detectable. Contaminated waste wood with natural biocide ageing, gilded and wood carved elements of an old picture frame and wooden samples with paint layers were provided by the Schlossmuseum Sondershausen, Germany.
Laser cleaning of areas of some square millimeters on the surfaces of the objects was done by means of femtosecond and nanosecond laser pulses. For 30-fs laser pulses at 800 nm wavelength a line-wise meandering movement of the object under the focused beam was performed. 10-ns laser pulses at 1064 nm and 7-ns laser pulses at 532 nm wavelength were applied to the sample surface using a scanner. Before laser application, a chlorine measurement was done by X-ray fluorescence analysis (XRF) as reference. After laser processing, the XRF analysis was used again at the same surface position to determine chlorine depletion rates of up to 75% (30 fs, 800 nm), 70% (10 ns, 1064 nm), and 22% (7 ns, 532 nm). For the application of 30-fs laser pulses on waste wood, no crystalline DDT residues remain on the sample surface observed utilizing optical microscopy.