Thread: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Celluloid (but was afraid to find out...)

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***If you are already comfortable with your knowledge level regarding cell rot, please disregard this post.***

While looking for some info to post in another thread, I tumbled across this article from The Journal of the American Institute for Conservation discussing cell rot. I'm going to post the article in its entirety here as the journal is now defunct and has been out of publication since 2005.

This article is without question the most concise yet inclusive discussion of celluloid decomposition, prevention, and preservation I have ever encountered and I believe it to be of great interest to most of us here. For those among us who have little familiarity with illustrations of chemical structures, fear not. The narrative explains all reactions in their entirety in layman's terms, and is much more focused on the processes we are concerned about than it is the chemistry. For those who'd like to cut to the chase, head for sections 2.7-4.4, though maximum benefit from the information is obtained by reading the article in its entirety. If it's hard to read here, please refer to the link.

All credit to Ms. Reilly for this excellent article.

From: JAIC 1991, Volume 30, Number 2, Article 3 (pp. 145 to 162)