The impact of volatile compounds released by paper on cellulose degradation in ambient hygrothermal conditions

Abstract

International audienceThe reactivity towards cellulose of various volatile compounds commonly released by paper was studied. Sheets of Whatman No. 1 (W1) and No. 40 (W40) were exposed to various concentrations of these compounds in vapour phase ranging from 20 to 80 ppm in closed vessels for 52 days in controlled ambient conditions, after which they were hygrothermally aged. The measured properties of the paper were copper number, degree of polymerization, zero-span breaking length, pH and yellowness index. The results showed that hydrogen peroxide was the most aggressive among the volatile compounds tested as it severely degraded W1 cellulose. The exposure of W1 to formic acid led to significant degradation, designating this volatile organic compound (VOC) as the most reactive toward cellulose among the carboxyl and carbonyl functionalized VOCs tested. On the other hand, acetic acid was found comparatively less reactive. Nitrogen oxides, which were produced up to 3 ppm from a side-reaction of the carboxylic acids with the magnesium nitrate used to control the relative humidity in the closed vessels, appeared to contribute significantly to the degradation despite their low concentration. Antagonistic effects were evidenced in binary vapour mixtures where the presence of aldehydes (formalde-hyde and acetaldehyde) counteracted substantially the degradation induced by the most reactive compounds. It was also shown that acetaldehyde, hexanal and furfural in individual exposures had little to no reactivity. Upon exposure to formaldehyde, the rate of glycosidic bond cleavage of cellulose induced by the ageing of W1 was significantly reduced

Application of Arrhenius law to DP and zero-span tensile strength measurements taken on iron gall ink impregnated papers: relevance of artificial ageing protocols

“…They were initially proposed by Evan et al [32] and have largely been used in the cellulose chemistry community for the cellulose/CED system. They lead to DP v values that are (i) experimentally consistent with M w values determined by size exclusion chromatography and (ii) proportional to average number of monomer per macromolecule (DP) with a proportionality factor that is relatively close to 1 [33]. Eq.…”

Deterioration of ancient cellulose paper, Hanji: evaluation of paper permanence

“…(Area and Cheradame 2011;Ding and Wang 2007;Forsskåhl 2000: Hotle et al 2008Kaminska et al 2001;Kato and Cameron 1999;Malešič et al 2005;Porck 2000;Rasch and Scribner 1933;Reilly et al 2001;Shahani et al 2001;Strlič et al 2011;Tétreault et al 2013;Zou et al 1996a;Calvini 2014) Since the process of natural aging is too slow, the aging of cellulose has to be accelerated by elevating the temperature to be able to then extrapolate the rate of cellulose scission to room temperature conditions. For this prediction, the rate of degradation at different temperatures is measured and an Arrhenius plot is constructed.…”

Effects of NO2 and acetic acid on the stability of historic paper

“…Acetic acid and nitrogen dioxide were selected as the most harmful pollutants based on previous work by the authors (Menart et al 2011a(Menart et al , 2011b, and recent monitoring at the National Archives (UK) (Fenech et al 2010). Although formic acid has recently been proposed as a potential threat to paper (Tétreault et al 2013) it has not been selected for this study, as it is found in concentrations significantly lower compared to acetic acid (at least an order of magnitude) even in archival boxes.…”