ICOM Committee for Conservation, ICOM-CC, 15th Triennial Conference New Delhi, 22-26 September 2008: preprints

Surfactants were examined as a means to reduce treatment times in releasing damp water-damaged photographs stuck to glass, glassine, PVC, polyethylene, and to each other. Housed photographs were immersed in treatment baths containing one of the following surfactants: Botanical soapwort, Dehypon LS-45, Photoflo 200, Saponin purum, Synperonic A7 and Triton-X 100. These were compared to a plain water control. Visual analysis, treatment notes and FTIR spectroscopy were used to compare treated samples with untreated controls. Results indicated that in most cases the plain water bath was the most successful treatment. Surfactants did not significantly improve the salvage operation; neither reducing treatment times nor increasing the ease of separation – with the exception of photographs attached to glassine, where Dehypon LS-45, Synperonic A7 and Triton X-100 performed very well. All of these surfactants require careful handling and disposal.