Mineral Consolidants

Author(s): George W. Scherer, Enrico Sassoni
Paper category: Proceedings
Book title: Proceedings of the International RILEM Conference
Materials, Systems and Structures in Civil Engineering 2016 segment on
Historical Masonry
Editor(s): Inge Rörig-Dalgaard and Ioannis Ioannou
ISBN: 978-2-35158-178-0
e-ISBN: 978-2-35158-179-7
Publisher: RILEM Publications SARL
Publication year: 2016
Pages: 14-23
Total Pages: 10
Language : English

Abstract: Inorganic consolidants, such as ethyl silicate, nanolime and ammonium oxalate, have proven
to be effective for certain materials, but each has its drawbacks. This has recently led to the
investigation of hydroxyapatite (HAP) as a novel inorganic consolidant, which demonstrated
excellent performance on carbonate stones. Considering that a mineral that matched calcite
crystal lattice parameters even more closely than HAP would be expected to provide a
consolidating action even greater than HAP, in this study aluminum phosphate (AP) was
investigated as a potential new consolidant. Indeed, AP has lattice parameters differing from
those of calcite by only 1%. The consolidating ability of AP was preliminarily investigated
here in comparison with HAP. Both treatments were tested on artificially weathered marble
samples, in the view of their application for conservation of sugaring marble. A novel method
is also proposed for producing samples with near-surface damage similar to that of sugaring
marble in the field. The results of the study point out that the novel weathering method is able
to provide samples with tailored gradient in dynamic elastic modulus, closely resembling
naturally sugaring marble. The AP treatment was found to significantly improve the dynamic
elastic modulus of weathered marble, at least as efficiently as the HAP treatment investigated
in this study. This confirmed the high potential of AP as a new inorganic consolidant.

Online publication : 2016
Publication type : full_text
Public price (Euros) : 0.00