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Vacuum Freeze Drying
Specialising in the professional, secure, and orderly recovery of our clients’ business records, libraries, and special collections, BMS CAT recognises that many of our clients will occasionally experience disasters and other incidents, which require the special handling of their records, books, and other information media.
What would first appear to be a ‘total loss’ can with expedient, knowledgeable, and technical assistance be a full recovery of all the essential information and data. Using cutting-edge restoration and recovery technologies, media from paper based documents to film, can successfully be retrieved and restored to a fully useable condition.
The backbone of all the recovery needs is BMS CAT’s fifth generation vacuum freeze-drying chambers that provide the technology to assist the of recovery valuable media.
The technology Vacuum freeze-drying uses the known and successful science of sublimation. What’s sublimation? Simply, it’s the change of state from ice to water vapour or water vapour to ice. This process by-passes the liquid state of this transition.
In the disaster recovery process, this process is vital as it is only in the liquid phase that damage occurs to media.
In simple terms, if the water in the affected items is frozen, we have stopped the immediate loss. This then allows all parties the opportunity to make valued and educated decisions on the media; is it worth restoring? do we have the data in another form? how vital are these records to the business or institution? can the data be reproduced economically?
Once the decision to recover the data has been made, the vacuum freeze-drying process enables the frozen paper media to dry without the water entering the liquid phase again.
Taking frozen paper media and placing them into vacuum freeze-dryers, we remove the air from these state-of-the-art chambers below the ‘triple point’. The triple point is the intersection on the diagram (see below) where three phases coexist in equilibrium.
The solid-state water (ice) within the articles is then subjected to a heat source and the solid water attempts to thaw (melt). Being below the triple point, the water cannot exist in the liquid state and therefore it transforms directly to the gaseous state. Once in the gaseous state we are able to extract it from the chamber. The result: the articles release all their water content but the articles never get wet during the process.
Advantages
There are other processes available to recover media following water and fire loss but each has its distinct advantages and disadvantages. You can always put a wet book out in the sun and let Mother Nature run its course! Or you can place the same book in a room and dehumidify the area and watch the water levels reduce daily. Both methods ignore the fact that DAMAGE OCCURS IN THE LIQUID PHASE OF WATER.
Once paper fibres become wet, they are pliable and the paper fibres fuse together. Separation of papers will be difficult, if not impossible, without information loss.
There is also the additional concern using other methods: possible mould formation, paper based products will expand making future storage of this information costly and awkward, unstable dyes continue to run and/or fade are some of the considerations when applying the correct recovery technology.
The best prevention is preparation
So whilst we still talk about the trend towards the paperless office, the reality is still a long way off. Corporations, libraries, schools, and other institutions will still be subjected to water losses and paper based articles and other media types will be subjected to this water damage. The answer to recovery is having a "000" attitude to commencing the recovery process and being pre-armed with the knowledge to successfully recover from such losses.
PRE-REGISTERING WITH BMS CAT IS FREE
By pre-registering with BMS CAT you are ensuring that your business is better prepared for when disaster strikes. Registering your business means we have the key information that allows us to prepare the most appropriate response, and the ability to respond almost instantly with the best resources and technology. The costs for not being prepared are high, but Pre-Registering with BMS CAT is free. When disaster strikes, you’ll find your Pre-Registration is priceless. Register today or call to find out how a little preparation can prevent a big problem.
