Journal
SURFACE AND INTERFACE ANALYSIS
Volume 40, Issue 3-4, Pages 454-457Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1002/sia.2677
Keywords
silver embrittlement; archaeological artefacts; AES; SEM plus EDX; XRD
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Archaeological silver objects are often found to be embrittled to some extent. Using light and scanning electron microscopy techniques, X-ray diffraction and AES, the causes of this embrittlement were studied on a silver artefact buried for more than 1000 years in soil. This investigation revealed the presence of chlorine, sulphur and carbon at grain boundaries of the Ag-Cu based object suggesting that most likely, the substantial embrittlement is caused by an inter-crystalline corrosion attack. The role of copper enrichment at the grain boundaries as a possible path of preferential corrosion attack is discussed. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available