high performance controlled atmosphere treatment for pest control in art objects

the conservation of artworks such as books, manuscripts, paintings and furniture requires good pest control. The best technique with the least risk for the artwork is controlled atmosphere treatment with nitrogen to remove oxygen and hence kill all life forms. Oxygen levels have to be descreased to well below 0.1 % over a period of 2 to 5 weeks. The system avoids environmental hazards of insecticides. This project concerns a new specifically adapted adsorption process to remove oxygen with 10 times lower nitrogen consumption than in existings processes. This would significantly decrease the logistic problems to bring large numbers of nitrogen botles in areas of a museum with difficult access. The system could also be automated and hance reduce the cost of labour even more.