BS EN 17891:2023

Conservation of cultural heritage. Desalination of porous inorganic materials by poultices. | Status: Current

1 Scope This document specifies a methodology applying poultices for the desalination of porous substrate constituting cultural heritage. The desalination methodology can be applied:

• — to salt-loaded porous inorganic materials affected by salt weathering, and/or
• — to allow conservation treatments incompatible with soluble salt(s) contamination, or
• — to prevent salt damage where contamination is known to be present.

In all cases the desalination aims to decrease the salt content. Furthermore, this document gives the fundamental requirements for the desalination operation and guidelines for the choice of the most appropriate poultice components according to the characteristics of the substrate and types/quantities of salt(s) present in order to optimize the desalination process.