Applications of EDXRF in the conservation of acid papers using a synchrotron light microbeam

Abstract

Paper can be produced from various raw materials, which give rise to differences in the permanence and durability of the paper product. Modern paper is characterised by a tendency to discolor and become brittle, both problems being generally related to the high acidity of these papers. In order to avoid the loss of historical paper documents to this discoloration and embrittlement, many approaches have been developed to deacidify the high acid papers. However, there is a problem to verify the effectiveness of the different strategies. For this work a synchrotron X-ray microprobe was used to study the distributions of elements, related to the deacidification treatments, within papers treated with specific processes. These elemental distributions can serve as indicators of the effectiveness of each individual process. The microprobe is located at beamline X-26A at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, National Synchrotron Light Source and utilised a 7 × 10 μm 2 collimated beam of X-rays from the synchrotron. Scans were performed transverse to paper sections to obtain elemental distribution through the sample. Some preliminary results of measurements on treated and untreated paper samples are presented.