墨的保存研究

中国墨有着悠久的历史,在中国文化发展方面起过重要的作用。中国的墨是由松烟或油烟与胶质及各种添加剂混合而制成。墨的保存很困难,常会产生裂纹和生霉,有的甚至裂成几块,而失去了它原有的价值。通过实验知道,湿度的交替变化即忽高忽低、低湿、高湿都对墨的保存极为不利。低湿使墨中蛋白质胶变性,变脆硬化;潮湿使胶膨胀失去粘性并促使霉的生长而引起生物腐蚀。在墨的保存和陈列中,要采取墨的储藏微环境的湿度控制,保持湿度的稳定。

Studies on conservation of Chinese ink stick

Chinese ink stick has a long history and has a special importance in Chinese culture. It is essentially a mixture of pine - wood soot or lampblack with glue and other constituents. In combination, kneading, pounding, steaming and rolling are done repetitively and at length to obtain a good product. There were a lot of Chinese ink sticks made during the Ming and Qing dynasties which are unique and beautiful. However , some of them cracked and broke into pieces or went moldy, and lost their original value. It is very urgent to solve these problems. According to experiments, it can been known that it is very dangerous to Chinese ink sticks and it is broken down easily by alternate variations of EH, drying, moistness and mould. Relative humidity changes in turn make ink sticks expand and contract alternately. This hastens warping and cracking of the ink stick. Drying makes the protein glue in Chinese ink denatured, fragile and hard, and moisture makes glue lose its adhesion with carbon powder and protein and makes the imk stick warped and cracked, and microorganisms can easily grow and deterioration, which brings about biodeterioration. Biodeterioration makes Chinese ink lost its character, whick is hard as stone, if it was mildewed that the surface was very loose and crisscrossed by ravines. Degradation of Chinese ink is also found that it concern with its making technique. Although SEM photo shows the surface of the ink was very compact and solid, it also had a few pores, which were not wel pounded. The water molecular could store in the pores, and easily cause expansion and microorganism to grow. From the photos, the combustion carbon of Chinese ink can be shown to be weU distributed and mixed closely with protein glue because of pounding thousands of times in Chinese ink sticks making, and can only be obtained good products. According to FTTR spectra recording the mildewed sample and control, there was a relative decrease in the two peaks in the region where amino acids are known to absorb (1660 - 1590cm-1,1550 - 1485cm-1) . These changes in the spectra would support the hypothesis that mould makes protein glue degraded or hydrolytic or that the mi- croorganism produced the product during growth. Expansion of the ink stick is not only a simply hygroscopic process, it also involves chemical changes and biodeterioration. Deoxygenating and filling with nitrogen are used to prevent ink sticks from moulding. Shanghai is situated on the east coast of China. The humidity usually remain about 65 % RH for the whole year and over 80% RH in the wettest months. However, sometimes air of lower RH can also be observed . The range of RH fluctuation is very wide in Shanghai. Even if RH is steady, the humidity will change with the temperature under relative sealed circumstances. The weather conditions are harmful to the conservation of Chinese ink because of the high or low humidity and fluctuating RH. Biological, chemical and physical deterioration caused by high RH or variation in RH is the main problem of conservation of ink sticks. The solution depends on the stabilization of humidity. A humidity controlling agent is the most practical solution for stabilizing humidity of individual boxes and showcases. It is effective to use humidity controlling materials for the conservation of Chinese ink sticks.