Abstract
This work describes mass recovery processes of flooded archival materials at industrial scale. The presence of fungi on paper represents a threat to the integrity of the document because they degrade cellulose, one of the main components of paper. Gamma radiation treatments are investigated as mass disinfection agents for their high penetrating power, speed of treatment, and absence of risk due to chemical residuals. We compared two different recovery processes: thermal drying followed by gamma irradiation and gamma irradiation followed by thermal drying. Both these processes were conducted simultaneously on naturally contaminated archival items and on paper specimens artificially contaminated with test species. Efficacy was assessed by culture method and ATP assay, right after the treatments and after four years of storage at room temperature. Coupling gamma irradiation with a drying step with dry heat at 55–60 °C reduces the fungal loads on natural items up to levels close to the detection limits, and the reduction is maintained after four years. On artificial specimens, spore germination is completely inhibited, mycelia growth is also highly affected, but the melanised test species appear to be more resistant. A synergistic effect between gamma irradiation, water content, and thermal drying is highlighted in this paper.
Zusammenfassung
Dieser Beitrag beschreibt die Behandlung flutbeschädigter Archivmaterialien in industriellem Maßstab. Schimmelpilze auf Papier stellen ein potentielles Risiko für Archivgut dar, weil sie die Zellulose, einen der Hauptbestandteile von Papier, abbauen. In der vorliegenden Studie wurden Möglichkeiten einer Behandlung von gefährdetem Archivmaterial mittels Gammastrahlung untersucht. Gammastrahlen haben eine hohe Durchdringungskraft, die Behandlung ist in kurzer Zeit durchführbar und hinterlässt keine chemischen Rückstände. Zwei verschiedene Verfahren wurden dabei verglichen: thermische Trocknung gefolgt von Gammabestrahlung und Gammabestrahlung gefolgt von thermischer Trocknung. Beide Prozesse wurden gleichzeitig an natürlich kontaminierten Archivalien und an künstlich mit Schimmelpilzen kontaminierten Papierproben durchgeführt. Die Wirksamkeit wurde durch Anlegen und Auswerten von Schimmelkulturen und ATP-Assay direkt nach den Behandlungen und nach vierjähriger Lagerung bei Raumtemperatur beurteilt. Durch die Kopplung der Gammabestrahlung mit einem Trocknungsschritt bei trockener Hitze (55–60 °C) konnte die Schimmelpilzbelastung bis nahe an die Nachweisgrenze reduziert werden; auch nach vier Jahren konnten kaum Schimmelpilze nachgewiesen werden. An künstlich kontaminierten Proben wurde die Sporenkeimung vollständig gehemmt und auch das Myzelwachstum stark beeinträchtigt, die melanisierte Spezies scheint jedoch resistenter zu sein. Besonders zeigte sich in dieser Studie ein synergetischer Effekt zwischen Gammabestrahlung, Wassergehalt und thermischer Trocknung.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Sterigenics SPA, Minerbio-BO, Italy, for technical support and for conducing the irradiation treatments.
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