Study on the desalination conservation of iron artifacts excavated at Qingshiling Mountain City,Gaizhou,Liaoning Province
The iron artifacts unearthed from Qingshiling Mountain City in Gaizhou,Liaoning Province,are severely damaged and contained a large amount of harmful rust.During the process of desalination of ironware using alkaline solutions,the pH value and chloride ion concentration of the soaking solution were dynamically tracked and monitored throughout the entire process to guide the soaking time and total desalination times.During the monitoring of desalination process,it was found:that as chloride ions were released,the pH value decreased;especially in the early stages of desalination,as a large amount of chloride ions were dissolved,the pH value rapidly decreased,and the soaking solution sometimes changed from alkaline to acidic in a short period of time;and that to avoid corrosion of ironware in the acidic environment,it was necessary to monitor the pH value of the desalination solution during the desalination process and replace it with a new solution in a timely manner.We have noted some practical precautions to be taken when using the NaOH solution desalination method,in order to achieve the goal of removing as many harmful chloride ions as possible in order to effectively conserve the ironware.In practice,it has been verified that using sufficient desalination cycles and other appropriate methods,the NaOH solution method could achieve almost complete conversion of β-FeOOH and almost complete removal of the chloride ion.
Iron artifactβ-FeOOHChloride ionAlkali solution desalination