Use of electrochemical techniques for the conservation of metal artefacts: a review

Abstract

Electrochemical techniques like mechanical and chemical ones should be among the panoply of techniques conservators normally use when they conserve metal artefacts. Often though, they are discarded because they are considered as too complicated and dangerous. As a consequence, not much development in the use of these techniques in conservation was observed before the 1990s when their application to marine artefacts once again drew the attention of conservation professionals. More recently, the latter have recognised the importance of these techniques in the understanding of corrosion processes as well as their monitoring and in the solving of specific conservation issues. Furthermore, instruments that were previously only used by corrosion scientists are today entering the conservation field. Portable tools have even been designed so that treatments can be carried out in situ. The current trend is to cluster electrochemical and analytical techniques in parallel in order to fully understand the behaviour of metal artefacts when conserved.