Abstract
This study focused on the non-destructive characterization of potentially hazardous Victorian-era books found in the Northwestern University Libraries. XRF, Raman and FTIR were used to identify and isolate hazardous books containing As-based pigments. These techniques also permitted, on selected books, to characterize the pigment as being Emerald green. However, none allowed for the identification of equally hazardous degradation products or potential transfer to adjacent books. These analytical gaps create limits in thoroughly identifying the level of risks associated with these books for library users and hampered the application of effective risk mitigation measures. Such limitations were overcome with synchrotron radiation (SR) techniques. Through SR-XRF, Cu/As distributions were mapped across covers and spines of green and neighboring books, whereas SR-X-ray absorption near edge structure (SR-XANES) was used to characterize the As oxidation state, leading to the identification of arsenates as degradation products. Besides successfully identifying hazardous books, this study demonstrated that hazards extend beyond As-containing green books to innocuous, long-standing neighboring books and non-colored pages due to migration and transfer of pigment and degradation products. Aside from helping to implement workplace health and safety measures, this study also informs how other libraries can identify and characterize potentially hazardous items in their collections.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | 131453 |
| Journal | Journal of Hazardous Materials |
| Volume | 454 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 15 2023 |
Funding
This collaborative initiative is part of NU-ACCESS's broad portfolio of activities, made possible by generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (grant number 1802-05441 ) as well as supplemental support provided by the Materials Research Center, the Office of the Vice President for Research, the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University . This work made use of the Keck-II, MatCI, Jerome B. Cohen X-Ray diffraction, and SPID facilities of Northwestern University which have received support from the SHyNE Resource ( NSF ECCS-2025633 ), the MRSEC program of the National Science Foundation ( DMR-1720139 ), the IIN , and Northwestern’s MRSEC program ( NSF DMR-1720139 ). Use of the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy , Office of Science , Office of Basic Energy Sciences under Contract No. DE-AC02-76SF00515 . The SSRL Structural Molecular Biology Program is supported by the DOE Office of Biological and Environmental Research , and by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of General Medical Sciences ( P30GM133894 ). The contents of this publication are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of NIGMS or NIH.
Keywords
- Copper(II)-acetoarsenite
- Emerald green
- Green book bindings
- Library studies
- XANES
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Environmental Engineering
- Environmental Chemistry
- Waste Management and Disposal
- Pollution
- Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis
