United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Environmental Sciences Research
Laboratory
Research Triangle Park NC 27711
Research and Development
EPA-600/S3-83-059 Aug. 1983
Project Summary
Acidic Deposition and the
Corrosion and Deterioration of
Materials in the Atmosphere:
A Bibliography. 1880-1982
0. R. Flinn, S. 0. Cramer, J. P. Carter, P. K. Lee, and S. i. Sherwood
Materials exposed to the atmosphere
are subjected to a wide variety of
stressing agents such as wind, solar
radiation, temperature, biological spe-
cies, many forms of water, and chemical
species including pollutant gases, par-
ticulate matter, and components of
rainfall, dew, snow, sleet, fog, and
aerosols. This bibliography contains
more than 1300 article citations and
abstracts on the effects of acidic depo-
sition, air pollutants, and biological and
meteorological factors on the corrosion
and deterioration of materials in the
atmosphere. The listing includes cita-
tions for the years 1950 to 1982, with
selected citations for the years 1880 to
1949. The citations are catalogued by
year in six sections for metallic mate-
rials—ferrous material, aluminum,
copper, nickel, zinc and galvanized
steel, and other metals—and six sec-
tions for nonmetallic materials—mason-
ry, stone and ceramics, elastomers,
fabrics, paints, plastics, and other non-
metals. An author index and an index of
chemical, biological, and meteorolog-
ical variables are provided.
This Project Summary was developed
by EPA's Environmental Sciences Re-
search Laboratory. Research Triangle
Park, NC. to announce key findings of
the research project that is fully docu-
mented in a separate report of the same
title (see Project Report ordering infor-
mation at back).
Introduction
Materials exposed to the atmosphere
are subjected to a wide variety of stress-
ing agents such as wind, solar radiation,
temperature, biological species, many
forms of water, and chemical species
including pollutant gases, particulate
matter, and components of rainfall, dew,
snow, sleet, fog, and aerosols. While
each of these agents may contribute to
the deterioration of materials, in most
cases the combination of two or more
agents causes more significant damage.
This bibliography contains more than
1300 citations of articles on the effects of
acidic deposition, air pollutants, and
biological and meteorological factors on
the corrosion and deterioration of mate-
rials in the atmosphere. Both peer-re-
viewed and grey literature have been
included. No attempt has been made to
define the term "acidic deposition"; in-
stead, the literature was searched for all
reasonable material and chemical, bio-
logical, and meteorological interactions.
Procedure
Many sources were consulted to en-
sure as complete a record as possible of
the pertinent literature. These sources
include the extensive conservationist and
foreign literature on the degradation and
corrosion of materials in statuaries, memo-
rials, monuments, buildings, historical
artifacts, and cultural objects. The sources
also include the literature detailing the
substantial European experience with
pollutant effects. Manual and computer-
assisted searches of data bases were
conducted, existing bibliographies were
utilized, and appropriate proceedings,
publications, and documents were re-
viewed. Furthermore, reference lists for
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the many articles, proceedings, publica-
tions, books, and public documents avail-
able to the authors were searched for
literature that was suitable for the bibli-
ography. Coverage of the literature is
intended to include all pertinent articles
from the years 1950 to 1982. For the
years prior to 1950, the coverage is
incomplete but includes at least the more
important articles from these years; this
has resulted in coverage extending back
to 1880.
Results
The bibliography is divided into 12
principal sections according to the mate-
rial at risk. There are six sections for
metallic materials—ferrous material, alu-
minum, copper, nickel, zinc and galva-
nized steel, and other metals—and six
sections for nonmetallic materials—
masonry, stone and ceramics, elasto-
mers, fabrics, paints, plastics, and other
nonmetals. Citations are organized in
these sections by year of publication.
Within each year, the citations are ar-
ranged alphabetically by title to emphasize
the contents of the article and to facilitate
identification of articles of interest. Each
citation begins with the title of the article,
followed by name(s) of the author(s),
name of journal or publication, volume
and/or issue number, date of publication,
page numbers, and parenthetically, the
language of publication if the article is not
in English. Abstracts are printed with the
first appearance of a citation. All sub-
sequent citations to the same article in
other materials sections, resulting when
an article reports studies on more than
one material, are indexed to the earliest
citation and the abstract is not repeated.
An author index follows the individual
materials sections. Approximately 1500
authors appear in this index. Authors are
listed alphabetically and are accompanied
by a coded listing of their publications
which is used to locate the appropriate
citations in the materials sections.
An index of chemical, biological, and
meteorological variables completes the
bibliography and provides access to all
citations according to subcategories of
these variables. However, water, water
vapor, dew, rain, snow, sleet, ice, fog,
moisture, and humidity are not indexed
as chemical variables because water is a
common component in all corroding
systems. All inorganic sulfur compounds
except hydrogen sulfide also were ex-
cluded from the list of chemical variables
because a great majority of the citations,
particularly those considering metallic
materials, had these compounds as com-
ponents of the corrosive environment.
Certain general phraseology was not
interpreted with respect to the index of
chemical, biological, and meteorological
variables without more specific informa-
tion. Examples of these phrases are:
rural, industrial, urban, weathering tests,
atmospheric pollutants, atmospheric ex-
posure, polluted sites, four sites, atmos-
pheric pollution, natural atmospheres,
atmospheres at seven locations, and
atmospheric corrosion. When phrases
such as these were the only descriptors of
the environment referred to in the cita-
tion, the citation was not catalogued in
the index.
Conclusions
The processes that occur during mate-
rial deterioration are complicated and
often involve a combination of two or
more causative agents. Therefore, many
studies have been conducted in attempts
either to ascertain the agent responsible
for a certain type of damage to a specific
material or to determine the best mate-
rials to use in certain types of character-
ized environments. In the former case,
most work has been conducted in labo-
ratory environments where the suspected
pollutant or other agent could be intro-
duced under controlled conditions. In the
latter case, materials have been field
tested in somewhat arbitrarily designated
"typical" rural, urban, industrial, and
marine environments. Only a few field
studies have attempted to monitor the air
quality and meteorological variables dur-
ing the exposure. Virtually no studies to
determine the effects of "acidic rain" on
materials have been reported.
For structures comprised of a number
of materials and subject to local micro-
climates, an analysis of the causes of
deterioration becomes more difficult and
even the definitions of "damage" may
change. Certainly this analysis is usually
much more descriptive and subjective
compared to that for single, well-
characterized materials. Despite these
difficulties, there is a large amount of
useful information regarding the effect of
contact with the environment on
materials. However, a large proportion of
the literature contained in this bibliogra-
phy resulted from studies that have
limited scope. Because the information
desired by any particular reader could not
be determined, no critical assessment of
this literature has been attempted.
Through the various sections of the
bibliography and the indexes, the reader
should be able to determine the extant
literature for a given combination of
material with chemical and/or biological
agent and meteorological variables.
One of the earliest surveys of materials
damage resulting from pollutant gases in
the atmosphere was the 1939 Bureau of
Mines Information Circular on the Effect
of Sulfur Compounds in the Air on
Various Materials (I.C. 7064, L.R. Burdick
and J. F. Barkley, 9 pp.). The circular
reflected an already growing concern
with the potential effect of air pollution on
materials deterioration in the atmos-
phere. The various materials included
cement, stone, paint, leather, paper,
cloth, copper, nickel, steel, and zinc.
Twenty-seven references were cited.
Similar reviews have been written in the
intervening years as the study of atmos-
pheric corrosion has greatly expanded.
D. R. Flinn, S. D. Cramer, J. P. Carter, and P. K. Lee are with the Bureau of Mines,
USDI, A vondale. MD 20782; S. I. Sherwood is with the National Park Service,
USD/, Washington, DC 20240.
John W- Spence is the EPA Project Officer (see below).
The complete report, entitled "Acidic Deposition and the Corrosion and
Deterioration of Materials in the Atmosphere: A Bibliography 1880-1982,"
IOrder No. PB 83-236 091; Cost: $40.00, subject to change) will be available
only from:
National Technical Information Service
5285 Port Royal Road
Springfield, VA 22161
Telephone: 703-487-4650
The EPA Project Officer can be contacted at:
Environmental Sciences Research Laboratory
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Research Triangle Park, NC 27711
*US GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1983-659-017/7155
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