Abstract From the perspective of deacidification and stabilization of lignocellulosic information carriers, it is important to understand the relationship between paper and water. Water enables the transport of substances into and out of the paper structure. Water causes cellulose to swell, i.e. “porosity” increases, which is essential for the penetration of active deacidification substance particles into the fibrous structure of the paper. However, an excessive amount of water, achieved at a high relative humidity, or in contact with the liquid water, at longer exposition time (tens of minutes) can destroy a paper-sheet in the book. Interactions of paper and water are significantly influenced by the paper's structure, the manufacturing process itself, and its composition, eg. rest of additives applied in the manufacture. Therefore, to better understand the effect of deacidification on acidic paper and to develop new deacidification systems, it is important to have a detailed understanding of how the structure and composition of this cellulosic material affect water sorption and the overall interaction between paper and water.The article focuses on studying changes in the water-paper interaction of four different types of paper, representing the aging of acidic paper. The characteristics of paper change significantly after aging, and therefore the samples were subjected to accelerated aging for 10 days. The samples were characterized based on cellulose DP, crystallinity, Kappa number, surface pH, cold extraction pH, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), surface microscopy (smoothness/roughness), air permeance, FTIR, and data provided by their manufacturers. To describe the relationship between paper and water, sorption isotherms, the Cobb test, WRV, and contact angle measurements were used.
Guzikiewiczová et al. (Mon,) studied this question.