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Equilibration Procedures

When storing objects at low temperatures, care must be taken that damage from condensation does not occur. Condensation will form when the temperature of the object is lower than the dew point7of the environment.

There are two ways of preventing this condensation forming and damaging the object. Either ensure that the temperature of the object is above the dew point of the surrounding room, or surround the object with moisture-resistant packaging so that the moisture is kept away from the film (Bigourdan & Reilly, 1997).

Tim Padfield of the Danish National Museum recommends that care should be taken not to decrease or increase the temperature too rapidly, regardless of whether the package is sealed8. Padfield advises that the material be sealed inside a polyethylene freezer bag, and then placed inside a picnic cooler, before being placed in a refrigerator or freezer. Likewise, for retrieval the materials should be allowed to equilibrate slowly to ambient conditions. Again, a picnic cooler or esky would be suitable. Additionally, a refrigerator or cold store could be used as an intermediate storage environment during equilibration.

Generally for cool stores above 0 ºC overnight is sufficient for equilibration.


(7) Dew point: The temperature at which the air is 100% saturated.

(8) Personal communication with the author.


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