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Effects of Long-Term Aging in Arsenical Copper Alloys

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2015

Filipa Pereira ,
Rui J. C. Silva ,
António M. Monge Soares ,
Maria F. Araújo ,
Maria J. Oliveira ,
Rui M. S. Martins  and
Norberth Schell
Filipa Pereira*
Affiliation:
CENIMAT/I3N, Departamento de Ciências dos Materiais, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, FCT, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal Centro de Ciências e Tecnologias Nucleares (C2TN), Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Estrada Nacional 10 (km 139.7), 2695-066 Bobadela LRS, Portugal
Rui J. C. Silva
Affiliation:
CENIMAT/I3N, Departamento de Ciências dos Materiais, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, FCT, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal
António M. Monge Soares
Affiliation:
Centro de Ciências e Tecnologias Nucleares (C2TN), Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Estrada Nacional 10 (km 139.7), 2695-066 Bobadela LRS, Portugal Museu Arqueológico do Carmo, Associação dos Arqueólogos Portugueses, 1200-092 Lisboa, Portugal
Maria F. Araújo
Affiliation:
Centro de Ciências e Tecnologias Nucleares (C2TN), Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Estrada Nacional 10 (km 139.7), 2695-066 Bobadela LRS, Portugal
Maria J. Oliveira
Affiliation:
Laboratório José de Figueiredo, Rua das Janelas Verdes 37, 1249-018 Lisboa, Portugal
Rui M. S. Martins
Affiliation:
CENIMAT/I3N, Departamento de Ciências dos Materiais, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, FCT, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, 1049-001, Lisboa, Portugal LATR/IST/CTN - Campus Tecnológico e Nuclear, Estrada Nacional 10 (km 139.7), 2695-066 Bobadela LRS, Portugal
Norberth Schell
Affiliation:
Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Max-Planck-Str. 1, 21502 Geesthacht, Germany
*
*Corresponding author. fpsp@campus.fct.unl.pt
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Abstract

Archaeological materials present unique records on natural processes allowing the study of long-term material behaviors such as structural modifications and degradation mechanisms. The present work is focused on the chemical and microstructural characterization of four prehistoric arsenical copper artifacts. These artifacts were characterized by micro-energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy with X-ray microanalysis, micro-X-ray diffraction and synchrotron radiation micro-X-ray diffraction. Cu3As is the expected intermetallic arsenide in arsenical copper alloys, reported in the literature as exhibiting a hexagonal crystallographic structure. However, a cubic Cu3As phase was identified by X-ray diffraction in all of our analyzed archaeological artifacts, while the hexagonal Cu3As phase was clearly identified only in the artifact with higher arsenic content. Occurrence of the cubic arsenide in these particular objects, suggests that it was precipitated due to long-term aging at room temperature, which points to the need of a redefinition of the Cu-As equilibrium phase constitution. These results highlight the importance of understanding the impact of structural aging for the assessment of original properties of archaeological arsenical copper artifacts, such as hardness or color.

Keywords

arsenical copper alloyscopper arsenideX-ray diffractiondomeykitechalcolithicmicrostructural characterization
Type
Materials Applications and Techniques
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 21 , Issue 6 , December 2015 , pp. 1413 - 1419
Copyright
© Microscopy Society of America 2015 

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