A preliminary study on the relation between camphor wood volatile matters and corrosion of museum metallic objects

Abstract

Camphor wood is a traditional storage material used in Chinese museums for repelling insects and inhibiting moulds. Since camphor wood continuously emits volatile matters, it leads to potential risks to museum collections on the other hand. Oddy test was conducted in this study to evaluate the reliability level of four different camphor wood samples for museum use. The samples were put into water and the pH values were measured in order to learn the acidity of each sample preliminarily. Modern instrumental methods including gas chromatography – mass spectrometry, X-ray diffraction and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, were employed to identify the volatile matters emitted by each sample and the corresponding corrosion products, respectively. The identification results were discussed together to infer possible corrosion mechanisms and evaluate the effects of aging time and species. The results showed that compared with the Cinnamomum camphora samples, the Cinnamomum glanduliferum sample led to higher risk to the metallic objects, while the reserve of acetic acid tended to decrease along with continuous aging of the Cinnamomum camphora sample but the risk did not decline significantly.