Rusty iron artifacts

Answer 1

Rusted ironware cultural relics faced many problems and there were many ways to protect and repair them.

** 1. Affective factors **
Iron is a chemical active in the natural environment, and it is easy to interact with harmful factors in the environment, leading to corrosion. The rust products were divided into harmful rust and harmless rust. The harmless rust, such as iron, had a tight and stable structure. The harmful rust contained harmful substances such as chloride-ions, which had a loose structure and unstable composition, such as iron dioxide. This loose rust had the function of water storage. Under acid, base and a certain humidity, it would continue to corrode the iron, and eventually it might be completely destroyed.

** 2. Protection and Restoration Method **
1. ** Surface cleaning and rust removal **
- If it is preserved well, it can be cleaned with chemical reagents or by electrochemistry. Phosphorous acid, phosphorous acid, Citric acid, tri-or tetrasodium-bound salt of EDTA, and so on are commonly used. If you use tools, you can choose bamboo knives, scalpels, dental drills, etc. to remove the loose rust on the outer layer and retain the rust on the inner layer. In the cultural relic restoration project, rust removal was divided into physical rust removal (such as using tools such as carving knives and hammers to remove hard matter, lumps, layered deposits of rust, etc.) and chemical rust removal (putting the cultural relics after physical rust removal into an ultrasonic cleaner, adding Deionized water for ultrasonic cleaning, then repeatedly rinsing with Deionized water, and finally drying).
2. ** Desalination **
- Deionized water was used for ultrasonic cleaning or 5% times the amount of semiconate was used for ultrasonic cleaning. The solution was changed regularly until the concentration of the Cl-ion in the solution was less than 4 milligrams per liter. Deionized water was used for repeated cleaning after desalt. Then, the solution was soaked and dehydrated with an alcohol solution, and then naturally dried.
3. ** Reinforcement and Repair **
- It can be used to rectify the shape change of the object caused by external compression or cracking, and to repair the fragility or incompleteness of the object. According to the degree of corrosion and fragility of the object, the damaged parts could be glued back to their original places with epoxy and prosper. The missing parts could be replaced or not according to the actual situation.
4. ** Corrosion Inhibition **
- Choose suitable metal corrosion inhibition agents, such as BTA, capricious acid, phosphorous acid, and so on.
5. ** Protection **
- The better sealing material was an organic silicon material, but it was expensive and the surface color of the object was slightly darker after treatment. Generally, it was coated with a soft brush in a fume hood with a solution of chloride-based or Butyl Actate (concentration of 1 - 5%). After natural drying, it was taken out.
6. ** Sealed, de-oxidization, preservation **
- The processed ironware cultural relics could be sealed with a PVP protective material, with an oxygen scavenger inside, or sealed with nitrogen for storage. When stored in the warehouse, a capsule should also be made to avoid physical damage.

In addition, there was also a product called the rust conversion agent, which could convert rust into a primer. It did not require manual polishing and could be directly applied to rusty equipment. It had a clear rust removal effect and was available in multiple colors.
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