Air Quality & Climate Control for Archives, Museums and Collections
For archives, museums, libraries and depots: invoice payment for public institutions, quiet equipment, conservation-grade humidity control.
Collections are rarely lost in a day. They are lost to their own room air.
Moisture corrodes metal, feeds mould on paper and textile, and moves wood and panel paintings until they crack. Dust does the rest, slowly, on every open surface. Both are equipment problems with equipment answers.
Three different failures, one cause
Metal corrodes
For clean iron and steel the risk rises significantly at approximately 65 per cent relative humidity and above. Salts and other surface contaminants cause active corrosion considerably lower. Archaeological metal with chloride contamination keeps deteriorating for as long as moisture is available.
Organics grow mould
Sustained high humidity brings mould on paper, textile, leather and photographic gelatine. Once it establishes in a depot it becomes a cleaning programme measured in months, object by object.
Wood and paint move
Swelling and shrinking cycles crack panel paintings, furniture joints and lacquer. Very dry air damages the same materials, which is why the goal is a stable level, not the driest air possible.
Active corrosion on archaeological iron continues for as long as moisture is available. Treatment in the workshop only holds if the storage climate holds.
Condensation or desiccant drying
Condensation (DH series)
Air is cooled below its dew point and the condensate drained away. The economical answer for heated exhibition rooms, depots and workshops, and for the large moisture load after a water ingress or roof failure.
Desiccant (TTR series)
A sorption rotor binds the moisture and discharges it through a separate regeneration airflow. It keeps working in cool and unheated buildings, in cellars and vaults, and wherever a low target humidity has to be held for metal or archaeological material.
A depot is one air volume shared by every material in it. The dial on the rack end tells you what that air is doing; the equipment decides it.
Silica gel remains valuable inside display cases and other enclosed microenvironments. What it cannot do is hold a level across an exhibition hall, a depot or a store room. That is an active equipment task, and it is the one conservation measure that can be retrofitted without touching a historic building's structure.
Dust, spores and building work
Filtration handles what dehumidification cannot: the particulate load. Visitor traffic carries dust and fibres into exhibition rooms, depots and historic buildings shed their own dust, and building work of any kind - refurbishment, redisplay, mould remediation - releases exactly the particles that must not settle on open objects. TROTEC TAC units filter to HEPA H14 under EN 1822, the class used in hospital and laboratory work, at 1,000 to 1,200 m3/h of genuinely filtered air rather than the 200 to 300 m3/h of a consumer device.
The equipment
TTR 500 D desiccant dryer
2.2 kg/h, 180-550 m3/h dry air, 25 kg, 125 mm duct outlet for ducting dry air into a store, a chamber or a run of closed cabinets. Working range minus 15 to plus 35 degrees.
Current price on the product page
TTR 160 desiccant dryer
The compact unit for a single store room, a small archive or a conservation workshop. Moved between rooms by one person.
Current price on the product page
TAC V+ TOWER
The Fraunhofer-validated H14 flagship with thermal filter self-decontamination, for mould-affected and biologically loaded rooms.
Current price on the product page
Also for collections: TTR 300 and TTR 400 D for larger stores, the stationary DH 25 S and DH 95 S for permanent depot installation, the TTR 800 stationary desiccant system, and the HG 125 hygrostat so a system runs to a set point instead of running constantly.
Where it is used
- Exhibition halls and galleries with large metal objects: vehicles, machinery, aircraft, sculpture
- Depots and collection stores, including cool basement and vault storage
- Archives, libraries and photographic collections
- Archaeological metal stores and conservation workshops needing a low, stable humidity
- Historic houses, churches and monuments without central climate control
- Water ingress, roof failure and flood recovery, where drying capacity is needed immediately
- Refurbishment, redisplay and mould remediation, where dust and spores must be kept off the objects
Procurement made simple
- Invoice payment for municipalities, foundations and public institutions
- Tender documentation: CE declarations, EN 1822 certificates, data sheets, manuals in German and English
- Quiet operation suitable for public opening hours
- Framework agreements and staggered delivery for institutions with several buildings
- Original TROTEC equipment from an authorised distributor, CE-compliant and Made in Germany
Tell us the room, we will size the machine.
Send the rooms that concern you, the humidity you measure today and the level you want to hold. You get a concrete recommendation and a quotation, at no cost and with no obligation.
