carbon dioxide cleaning

MaryW commented on the word carbon dioxide cleaning

Yes, the most “delicate” way to spruce up century-old sculptures is to hit them with pellets of dry ice at supersonic speeds. That’s the badass science of fine art conservation for you.
The formal name for the technique is “carbon dioxide cleaning,” and it actually has all kinds of applications: removing particles from electric circuits, cleaning telescope mirrors, preparing laboratory samples, manufacturing metal parts. But at the Freer, the objective was to scour away the protective wax layer that coats the Saint-Gaudens statues. This would allow conservators to clean and polish the bronze underneath before applying a fresh wax coating and placing the figures back on their

pedestals.

Sarah Kaplan, Museum uses micro explosions to save fine art from bird poop, Wash. Post, July 19, 2017

July 24, 2017