A Polymeric Treatment for Controlling Salt Damage to Stone and Brick (2011-07)

A recent NCPTT grant assisted a team from Princeton University’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Department to propose an approach to controlling salt damage.  The goal of the project was to create a method for protecting stone from crystallizing salts by modifying the surface chemistry of the stone.

The aim was to develop a chemical treatment for limestone that would eliminate the repulsion, and thereby prevent salt from applying pressure on the pore walls.   The polymer chosen for testing was polyacrylic acid with low molecular weight.  The pH of the polymer solution was adjusted for compatibility with calcium carbonate.

To date, there are treatment reproducibility problems that are not fully understood.  Possible explanations are discussed and additional research directions are proposed.  For a complete report on the project, see the download above.