Investigation towards Laser Cleaning of Corrosion Products from Lead Objects

Heritage 2023
Denis Prokuratov, Andrey Samokhvalov, Dmitry Pankin, Oleg Vereschagin, Nikolai Kurganov, Anastasia Povolotckaia, Alexander Shimko, Alexandra Mikhailova, Roman Balmashov, Anastasia Reveguk, Olga Smolyanskaya, Dmitrii Redka, Vjačeslavs Bobrovs

In this work lasers with micro-, nano-, pico- and femtosecond pulse durations were used to clean atmospheric corrosion products from the fragments of a 19th-century lead outdoor sculpture. The state of the surface was studied by optical microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy. It was shown that for all lasers used there is no self-limiting cleaning effect, and the metal damage threshold is lower than the corrosion removal threshold. Using the XPS method, it has been demonstrated that the effect of turning a metallic lead surface blue after irradiation is associated with an interference effect in the PbO film. Raman spectroscopy indicated no phase changes in the corrosion layer after laser cleaning with 8 ns, 75 ps and 100 fs pulses, which makes these lasers useful for the layer-by-layer cleaning of archaeological objects.

Keywords
laser cleaning; atmospheric corrosion; lead; Raman spectroscopy; SEM
DOI
10.3390/heritage6020071
Hyperlink
https://www.mdpi.com/2571-9408/6/2/71

Prokuratov, D., Samokhvalov, A., Pankin, D., Vereschagin, O., Kurganov, N., Povolotckaia, A., Shimko, A., Mikhailova, A., Balmashov, R., Reveguk, A., Smolyanskaya, O., Redka, D., Bobrovs, V. Investigation towards Laser Cleaning of Corrosion Products from Lead Objects. Heritage, 2023, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp.1293-1307. e-ISSN 2571-9408. Available from: doi:10.3390/heritage6020071

Publication language
English (en)