Anoxia – environmentally friendly disinfection

The environmentally friendly nitrogen anoxia method for the conservation and disinfection of cultural objects is now available in Hungary too.

We continuously research innovative, effective yet environmentally friendly museum-technology solutions and try to make them available in Hungary as well. The manufacturer asked us to act as regional representative of a technology whose advantages we ourselves are convinced of, but whose importance ICOM and ICOMOS have also recently spoken up for.

This is the in situ generated nitrogen anoxia technology, which cannot be replaced by any other method in the field of conservation and disinfection of cultural objects. It is especially recommended for paper, wood and textile, and other organic or mixed-material objects, but it can be used to treat almost any object.

Compared with far more dangerous and, in many cases, toxic methods, the use of nitrogen anoxia has numerous advantages:

• Safe – non-toxic
• Environmentally friendly – 78% of air is nitrogen
• Non-flammable – there is no oxygen, and nitrogen does not support combustion
• Neutral – it does not react with the material of the objects

What makes the news timely is that the EU recently introduced a restriction on on-site nitrogen production, against which the Austrian Federal Ministry for Sustainability and Tourism lodged a protest. They reviewed all the alternatives to the technology and concluded that, for various reasons, it cannot be replaced by any other method in museum practice. ICOM then asked the entire museum profession to speak up in favour of amending the EU regulation that prohibits in situ nitrogen production. The National Centre for Museological Methodology and Information also reported on this. We hope that, in the very near future, the field of object conservation will be removed from the scope of the regulation, which presumably aims to ban other, industrial on-site nitrogen production, that the administrative obstacles will disappear and that the practical use of nitrogen anoxia for museum-technology purposes can continue.

The nitrogen anoxia chambers of the manufacturer represented by Tripont, and the related in situ nitrogen generation systems, are tailored to the special needs of institutions, ranging from smaller chambers for disinfecting documents or books to solutions suitable for the anoxic treatment of whole objects.

For archives, libraries, museums, and church or private collections alike, it is recommended to treat the objects when they enter the collection, or even afterwards.

A detailed description of the technology and the equipment can be downloaded here: Pest eradication by nitrogen anoxia – information sheet (PDF)

Further reading

A study of the technology by the Getty Conservation Institute: Selwitz, Charles, and Shin Maekawa. 1998. Inert Gases in the Control of Museum Insect Pests. Research in Conservation. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Conservation Institute. http://hdl.handle.net/10020/gci_pubs/inert_gases

chs@tripont.hu