Experience of Ultrasonic Use to Stabilize Archaeological Iron Artifacts with Active Corrosion

Abstract

Of all the complex problems of museum storage of archaeological objects, iron objects represent one of the most difficult. In the process of corrosion, an iron object passes through several stages, from oxidation of the metal surface to full mineralization. The greatest problem consists of the items in the stages of oxidation, when the metal is almost completely corroded and converted into minerals. Mineral peels exfoliate under the influence of active corrosion, leading to a loss of historical significance of the object. In the world’s practice of archaeological iron conservation, there are several different ways of stabilization, but none of them can guarantee the integrity of the iron artifact during its museum storage. To date, the most effective conservation method of stabilizing archaeological iron is alkaline sulfite treatment. However, this method has a number of drawbacks, the main of which is the duration of the stabilizing treatment. The authors consider the possibility of increasing the efficiency of the method of processing archaeological iron objects in an alkaline sulfite solution by means of ultrasonic solution activation. In the course of the experimental study, it has been established that the use of ultrasonic in alkaline sulfite treatment hugely increases the efficiency of the method.

Keywords

• archaeology
• conservation
• preservation of museum artifacts
• archaeological iron
• stabilization