• Journal of Korea Technical Association of The Pulp and Paper Industry
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.22-29
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• 2014

Many government agencies have used domestic deacidification equipments to stabilize archives; however, no agency has verified archives' current preservative status. We studied the Nara National Archives' documents that had treated by mass deacidification process from 2001 to 2012, in order to examine the documents' preservative status and how efficient the mass deacidification has been. Approximately 1% of total 112,970 Nara National Archives' documents treated by mass deacidification were randomly selected and evaluated on their current measure of acidity and color change. Regardless of the kinds of document material, a wide range of pH level was found. Especially those documents that were treated by mass deacidification equipment after 2006 showed acidic conditions that were less than pH 6.8 level. Those documents were probably not treated properly by deacidifying chemical because of tightly packing style. The current measures of acidity and color records will be useful as a reference for future evaluations of further decay of the documents. It was the first study to evaluate acidity and color conditions of Nara National Archives' documents treated by mass deacidification equipment. We concluded that when using mass deacidification equipment, archives should not be loaded tightly in order for them to be fully in contact with deacidifying chemical.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.374-379
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• 2014

After completing deacidification process and evacuating rest of solvent, white fine particles of MgO are found on the surface of archival materials, such as books and documents. When MgO particles remain on the surface of archives, instead of being well dispersed and absorbed into cellulose fiber of archives, such white fine particles are found. These particles have raised concerns for employees' deacidification environment and their health; however, the concerns have not been addressed. To find the cause of white fine particles on the surface of archives after deacidification process and to propose the its solution, an acidic paper and wood free paper were applied with deacidifying chemicals. We analyzed the domestic and abroad deacidifying chemicals' physical properties and conducted deacidifcation processes to find effects of different contents and sizes of MgO on white fine particles. When the size of MgO particle was 847 nm, there was significantly less amount of white fine particles on the surface of archival materials. This means that the size of MgO particle plays a significant role in producing white fine particles on the surface of archives.