ANCIENT MONUMENTS They gain the battle against pollution

ANCIENT MONUMENTS They gain the battle against pollution
(ΤΑ ΝΕΑ 20/01/2005) P.Katimeritzi

The pollutants-murderer that offend the persons and the old ancient monuments have receded perceptibly from the Acropolis of Athens, thanksto pedestrians streets.
In Acropolis after decades of researches and experimentation, is prepared very carefully the big step for the covering of monuments that finds in the countryside with thin unvisible cloak of protection that can be removed and it is renewed without to destroys the marble with which he is compatible.
"For the protection of surface of marble we found a material ours and we applied in real conditions in a column of Propylaia for eight years and in a sign. The results were very good. It is to be approved for all the monuments and is extended the use , says in" ΤΑ ΝΕΑ " the professor chemical mechanic Theodoros Skoulikidis.
"It is semiconductor, that constitutes our own invention, a patent for which interest itself a lot of scientists. It enters with spreying. It resulted from researches of many years. The semiconductors are oxides of metals, aluminium, magnesium etc.', that acquires the attributes of semiconductor when they are prepared electrolytic. Their action is based on the suspension of plasterization ".
They will finish sometimes the work?
"This process will need to be repeated after twenty years".
Does not exist life without combustions. Even the breathing of person makes dioxide of coal. One of the a lot of gases that hover in atmosphere and when they are mixed with water of rain they are changed in acids capable they offend not only the person, but also the Stone. The combustion of crude oil of industries, oil of bad quality for the heating and the movement vehicles rise up in level of alarm the atmospheric pollution of Athens in one decade from 1955 - 1965.
The mesures that were taken by the state at the pollution did not aim at direct the protection of monuments, but people protection. Helped however the removal of industries that burned crude oil, the improvement of quality of fuels, mainly the desulfurization of petrol, the imposition of ring, the renewal of fleet of cars, the removal of tourist buses from the Acropolis in 1992, the unleaded petrol and more recently the metro underground, the tram, pedestrian ways round Acropolis. All these led to vertical fall of certain pollutants and more important to stabilisation of prices in level acceptable from the European Union.

However the pollutants of cars resist vigorously."Indeed, exist some improvement, but the things are not white-black", say the chemical engineer Evi Papakonstantinou, head of Sector of Maintainance of Service of Maintainance of Monuments of Acropolis. Sulfidization is continued with slower rythm. The cloud comes and go, hovering particles in atmosphere are increased and their prices the last years exceeds often the limits of European Union. The profit from the mesures of anti-pollution and the replacement of the cars fleet with new technology has evaporated almost because the doubling of number of vehicles that circulates ". The scientists and conservers tried they stop the deterioration of monuments and stabilise the surfaces. the sculptures that could be transported they took the street for the museum. Ready know-how it did not exist.

In order to is found the treatment it should first are studied the mechanisms that cause the deteriorations and in this sector Greece created know-how when the professor Thodoros Skoulikidis discover the mechanism of plasterization of marbles and it achieved to reverses with natural way, adding grains calcium with tens sprayings of light calciumwater on the surface.

Acropolis Athens split