Abstract
Salt crystallisation is a major problem of deterioration in historic stone buildings, monuments and sculptures. The capillary rise of soil water is one of the primary sources of salts in stone structures, which evaporates leaving the salts behind. It has been noted that the spatial distribution profile of different species of salts crystallised in historic stone buildings is not homogeneous, i.e. different salts crystallise at different locations. The capillary transport and inhomogeneous spatial distribution of different salts in the porous building materials has been considered to be a result of solubility-dependent crystallisation; however, the factors responsible for this phenomenon are not clearly known. This paper aims to investigate the factors influencing the differential distribution of salts during capillary rise of soil water. In this study, the capillary transport of salts was simulated on two different sandstones—Locharbriggs, a Permo–Triassic, red sandstone and Stoke Hall, a Carboniferous, buff sandstone. The experiments were carried out under controlled environmental conditions to eliminate the possibility of evaporation-driven crystallisation of salts depending on their solubilities. The results indicate that fractionation or differential distribution of salts takes place even in the absence of evaporation and crystallisation. The sandstones exhibit properties like an ion exchange column, and ionic species present in the salt solution show differential distribution within the porous network of sandstone.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are thankful to Mr. Chris Doherty and Dr. Peter Ditchfield (Research Laboratory for Archaeology and History of Art, University of Oxford), Ms. Hong Zhang, Dr. Mona Edwards and Mr. Christopher Jackson (Oxford Rock Breakdown Laboratory, University of Oxford) for all their assistance in carrying out this research. The authors acknowledge the financial support received for this research from the Dorothy Hodgkin Postgraduate Awards, the Charles Wallace India Trust and the Exeter College (University of Oxford). The constructive feedback received from the reviewers is also acknowledged.
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Pandey, S.C., Pollard, A.M. & Viles, H.A. A simulation study of capillary transport, preferential retention and distribution of salts in historic sandstone buildings. Environ Earth Sci 76, 434 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-017-6769-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-017-6769-4