1. Studies of deterioration of the tin–mercury alloy within ancient Spanish mirrors
- Author
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Adrian Duran, M. L. Franquelo, M. C. Jiménez de Haro, A. Justo Erbez, Jose Luis Perez-Rodriguez, and L.K. Herrera
- Subjects
Diffraction ,Archeology ,Materials science ,Scanning electron microscope ,Materials Science (miscellaneous) ,Cassiterite ,Alloy ,Metallurgy ,Analytical chemistry ,chemistry.chemical_element ,Conservation ,engineering.material ,Mass spectrometry ,Mercury (element) ,X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy ,chemistry ,Chemistry (miscellaneous) ,engineering ,Tin ,General Economics, Econometrics and Finance ,Spectroscopy - Abstract
Glass backed with a tin–mercury alloy, commonly called the amalgam mirror, was the dominant mirror used from the 15th century until the beginning of the 20th century. In this work, a qualitative analysis of the crystalline phases of the alloy surface of ancient mirrors was done using the grazing incidence X-ray diffraction technique (GID). Their morphologies were studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and the elemental analyses were done by energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDX). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was used to characterize the atomic composition of the surfaces. Our results indicate that the amalgam is composed of a binary alloy of tin and mercury (Hg 0.1 Sn 0.9 ). Mercury is volatile and slowly evaporates, leaving finely divided particles of tin that are easily oxidized, forming romarchite (SnO) and cassiterite (SnO 2 ).
- Published
- 2008