Air Stream Drying of Paper

The air stream drying technique was originally applied in printmaking and hand-papermaking workshops in order to shorten drying times and to maintain planarity of paper. The application of this technique in the paper conservation field was for the first time suggested by R. Futernick in 1988 and was then introduced at the Western Regional Paper Conservation Laboratory in San Francisco. This extract describes the physical fundamentals of the actual drying process with the implimentation of a simple stack of corrugated board for drying. Moist paper documents that are to be dried are stacked - under slight preassure - inbetween the layers of corrugated board. The stacks are equipped with a blower providing a continuous airflow throughout the open channels of the board material. The moisture is removed by the continuous evaporation through the moisture absorbing corrugated board material until equilibrium with the ambient air is reached.