Restoration of Flooded Documents: Past And Future Of The Activity At Liege, Belgium

The Centre Spatial de Liege (CSL) was involved in the lyophilization process since 1991, when a large incident occurred to precious books from the National Archives. After a successful restoration, several further occasions took place up to now for freeze-drying flooded documents in vacuum chambers, normally devoted to space equipment testing. Customers range from ministries to particulars.

Due to several drawbacks associated to the use of vacuum chambers in clean rooms, it has been decided to create a spin-off company (SVA - Special Vacuum Applications, Ltd) in charge of the operations, with its own equipment including a large vacuum chamber. A grant from the regional authorities has enabled to master various aspects of the document salvation process, including sterilization for the prevention of fungus and mould.

The presentation describes the present and future equipment and processes associated with large scale lyophilization of damaged documents.