Indoor Air Quality in the Museum Environment Workshop

Eric Breitung, Marco Leona, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Welcome and Introduction

Paula Olsiewski, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Sloan Chemistry of Indoor Environments program

David Thickett, English Heritage
Keynote 1 — The state of IAQ in museums: Context for and an introduction to the state of knowledge and practice for the museum environment

Bill Nazaroff, University of California, Berkeley
Keynote 2 — The state of IAQ research for human health: Context for and an introduction to the state of science in indoor air quality research

Discussion Leader: David Thickett, English Heritage

Introduction
Primary focus of field has been first city pollutants followed by display, storage, and transport materials. As the sources of city pollutants are generally known, this section will focus on how the conservation field attempts to both identify commercially available and safe for the art materials.

Patty Silence, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Examples of how sensitive objects are displayed indoors, safe-keeping best practices focusing on chemicals in the environment including exhibition cases, coatings, sealants, sealed vs ventilated cases – pros/cons, and the basis for decision making.

Jean Tetreault, Canadian Conservation Institute
Known sources of damaging chemicals from various classes of materials. What chemicals are coming from what types of materials? Which are the most damaging to what types of art?

Eric Breitung, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Materials tests using art surrogates: Oddy and paper tests. Outline history, basic test specifics, range of test conditions, and how results are used in the field.

Eric Monroe, Library of Congress
Materials analysis via TD-GCMS with toluene equivalents to semi-quantify concentrations. Provide examples of assessing individual materials as well as exhibition/storage spaces. Describe how this data is used to make materials selection, room layout, and other decisions. for safe-keeping of collections.

Catherine Stephens, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Use of SPME-GCMS to identify harmful compounds in materials and room environment - pros/cons. Outline method for establishing thresholds for acceptable amounts of marker chemicals. Include museum case study.

Drew Gentner, Yale University
Evolution of tools and methods for VOC analysis indoors. Outgassing of VOCs from materials

Open Discussion

• Opportunity for IAQ community to ask clarifying questions about museum environment/materials testing approaches and vice versa. Are there obvious opportunities?
• Are there better approaches the field should take to answer the question of what chemicals in what quantities might damage art?

Discussion Leader: Joost de Gouw, University of Colorado, Boulder

Introduction

• Where are reactions happening? What are those reactions? Are they producing safe or unsafe molecules for the art (reactive or film developing)
• Primary vs secondary reactions of volatiles: what is the role of each for degrading artist’s materials?
• What is the role of aerosols in art degradation?
• Are grime films a factor in art degradation?
• Surfaces of art: reactivity and absorptivity. Temporary vs permanent chemical sinks.

Pamela Hatchfield, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
What circumstances lead to significant issues with chemicals affecting art. What types of art are most obviously affected? What types of art are more subtly but significantly affected? Do we know what reactions are occurring under what circumstances?

Kate Schilling, Yale University
Mechanisms behind photographic “pinking”. What are the atmospheric/environmental contributions to discoloration? Is this generalizable to all photographs of a particular type, or is it dependent on subtle changes in developing, processing, original paper, or materials used?

Delphine Farmer, Colorado State University
HomeCHEM overview, with focus on gases, which may be reactive with art objects esp. organic acids.

Paul Ziemann, University of Colorado, Boulder
Chemistry of organic films and organic aerosols indoors.

Sarah Styler, University of Alberta
Urban grime and indoor surfaces, chemical transformations of surface films, relationship to indoor surfaces in museums.

Glenn Morrison, University of North Carolina
Organics on indoor surfaces, ozone uptake on indoor surfaces. Art and people as a sink for chemicals. Chemical activity of surfaces.

Cora Young, York University
Indoor chemistry of reactive nitrogen species.

Faye McNeill, Columbia University
Chemistry of water on indoor surfaces and impact on IAQ. Lab to environment modeling.

Manabu Shiraiwa, University of California, Irvine
Indoor surface chemistry modeling – Examples of how experimental data is used to support models for understanding how and when chemicals interact with surfaces.

Open Discussion

• Are there approaches being used to understand IAQ that translate well to needs in the museum environment? Are there obvious opportunities?
• Are the locations of and types of chemical transformations and surfaces being studied in the IAQ community that are similar to those found in museums?
• What inputs are needed to translate currently available IAQ tools to museum IAQ?
• For VOCs, do we know which are of primary concern to each type of art? Do we know the barrier to conversion of non-reactive to reactive VOCs
• Are reaction mechanisms and rates needed for secondary reactions?
• Are surface or interfacial layer chemistries understood well enough to use as inputs for IAQ/surface reactivity models?

Discussion Leader: Faye McNeill, Columbia University

Introduction

• What is state of science with compact real-time sensors?
• What is the detection limit of the tests currently in use vs. those available in the IAQ community?
• Are there novel low cost, practical tools or ways of applying tools that can help museums understand their chemical environment?
• What are the state of advanced analytical tools used by IAQ scientists?
• Can these be applied in museums to learn novel info?
• For practical sensors, are new sensors needed at appropriate detection limits?
• What is the utility of real time vs. single point data collection?

Kelly Krish, Image Permanence Institute
Overview of practical and affordable museum approaches to IAQ measurements to assess the impact of modifying HVAC conditions. Pros and cons.

Olivier Schalm, University of Antwerp
Current Euro-museum approaches to IAQ measurements and methods. How large amounts of data is digested and used to make decisions.

Joost de Gouw, University of Colorado, Boulder
Sources of volatile organic compounds indoors, including the CU Boulder Art Museum. Real-time VOC measurements by mass spectrometry.

Andy Ault, University of Michigan
Indoor surface composition and acidity, development of pH sensors for indoor surfaces

Breakout Session 1

• For each session (Chemical sources, Chemical transformations, and Instrumentation and testing), what are at least 3 major knowledge gaps in the cultural heritage air quality field that can be addressed with the workshop participant’s or similar expertise? Do these gaps need to be addressed in a particular order, and/or or is the impact of filling the gaps greater for one over another – rank and justify.

• What are the best approaches, novel or not, for addressing the major knowledge gaps.
  • Address the most critical gaps/needs.
  • Are there specific techniques and expertise that can be combined to contribute new scientific insights and solutions?
  • Consider and list the needed resources if atypical or novel. How large of an effort is needed to have a significant impact on improving the life of collections? ($0.1MM, 0.5MM, 1MM, 5MM, 10MM…)

Discussion leader: Faye McNeill, Columbia University

Ken Suslick, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana
Development of low cost, single point, chemical specific colorimetric sensor. Comment on current state of development and availability. What is needed to bring this to the marketplace?

Jesse Kroll, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Low cost sensors for VOCs and other trace gases in indoor air

Roisin Commane, Columbia University
Compact CO2 sensors for urban air quality with potential for indoor measurements

Chuck Henry, Colorado State University
Development of compact, low-cost sensors for (indoor) environmental applications– microfluidics, paper-based techniques, various detection techniques (colorimetric, electrochemical, chromatography)

Dan Westervelt, Columbia University
Low cost sensors for PM2.5 and gases in indoor air.

Open Discussion

• Are there opportunities to implement currently available tools in novel ways to provide critically needed knowledge for safe-keeping of the art?
• What are the primary limitations of IAQ sensor tools?
• Do low cost sensors provide the resolution and accuracy needed to understand the transformations and reactions being observed in museums?
• Are there areas of development or solutions on the horizon available to solve these issues?
• The museum industry is a very small market for equipment and tools. If novel tools are made available or developed, are they useful for other markets?

Discussion leader: Boris Pretzel, Victoria and Albert Museum

Introduction

• What are the main tools and techniques used to remove or mitigate hazardous chemicals from the art environment?
• Is this different for display cases and open rooms?
• How well do current filter media perform to remove known hazardous chemicals?
• Should display cases be sealed or vented and filtered?
• Difficulty of controlling the environment inside vs. outside of case?
• What is needed to establish consistent relative humidity and allow air exchange through filters?
• How much air circulation is needed to properly filter?
• What filters are needed/what chemicals require removal for internal active filtration?
• Can passive filters be effective?
• What flow rate is needed? What chemistries are needed?

Joelle Wickens, University of Delaware
Simple approaches to protecting objects from pollutants in and out of vitrines or enclosed environments.

Chris Muller, Muller Consulting/Purafil
State of the art of commercially available filtration media for HVAC and vitrine air filtration.

Susan Heald, Smithsonian Institution
Logistics and expense of using in-case filtration systems. Adsorbents within the case system vs filtration fabrics in leakier cases.

Alexandra Schieweck, Fraunhofer Institute
Case filtration – literature review of vitrine filter media effectiveness and lifetime including all commonly used filter media.

Open Discussion / Break-out session 2

• With the addition of current mitigation methods and instrumentation, are there new knowledge gaps that can and should be addressed by the types of labs represented at the workshop? Are these gaps higher or lower priority than those identified yesterday? Rank and justify your table’s knowledge gaps.
• What are the best approaches, novel or not, for addressing the new major knowledge gaps.
• Address the most critical gaps/needs.
• Are there specific techniques and expertise that can be combined to contribute new scientific insights and solutions?
• Consider and list the needed resources if atypical or novel. How large of an effort is needed to have a significant impact on improving the life of collections? ($0.1MM, 0.5MM, 1MM, 5MM, 10MM…)

Group report-outs
Summary and open discussion
Steering committee summarizes and documents main conclusions

Additional Attendees:
Rebecca Kackowski, Smithsonian Institution
Daniel Burge, Image Permanence Institute
Chris McGlinchy, Museum of Modern Art