How to Remove Odors From Books

By Craig Stark

What's that line from the Beatle's "Mother Nature's Son"? "Swaying daisies, sing a lazy song beneath the sun." Ah, now that the languorous days of summer are approaching, this might be a good time to discuss a method of deodorizing books that I've had success with and in fact uses Mother Nature.

This method takes advantage of a phenomenon you might not be familiar with. For lack of a better term, I'll call it the fan effect. If you stand a book upright and open it, it will usually separate into sections of leaves, like this:

If you're doing this to air the book out, it doesn't work all that well. It's almost impossible, in fact, to fan the leaves out. But something magical happens if you face the book into a gentle breeze:

Within minutes the breeze gently opens all of the leaves with remarkable uniformity, exposing each down to the gutters to both fresh air and sunlight, allowing the sun's ultraviolet rays to do their thing. If you do this with books that smell musty, smoky, etc., many odors will be either greatly reduced or eliminated altogether within one to three afternoons of exposure. If there's no breeze, a fan switched on low will accomplish the same thing.

Some words of caution:

Sunlight can fade a book's cover in pretty short order, so take care to position the cover away from the sun - and besides, you'll want the fanned leaves to face the sun anyway to maximize its odor reducing powers. Sunlight can also fade some types of text, but typically inks used to print books require much longer exposure times to be significantly affected.

Unless you can rig a totally sealed entry hole into the container, forget about using anything that requires a plug. Any cord that passes outside the container will likely compromise the seal on the lid. Test the fan first for ten minutes or so to make sure it will achieve this fanning effect. If it doesn't, placing spacers between the leaves will achieve a similar result. I use 14" zip ties, which works on most books. Of course, the generator goes in last.

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Once the pre-set running time expires, open the lid, leave the area, and let the container air out for at least an hour to allow the ozone to convert back to oxygen. When you return, do a sniff test. If the air still has a bleach-like scent, leave again and give it more time. BTW, this is a familiar scent if you've ever gone outside shortly after a thunderstorm. If the book requires a second or third treatment, spend as little time as possible to reset the generator and replace the lid for a second treatment, and leave again. Air out again. Be safe again.

Final thoughts:

Obviously, paper is manufactured in countless thicknesses and porosities. Some of it is coated, glossy or not, and is less inviting to ozone penetration. Treatment times will therefore vary. Many books will require only one treatment, others perhaps two. The most treatments I have ever had to use were three. After some experimentation, you'll be much better at estimating this.

Apparently there is at least some potential for damaging a book if it is over-treated. It's been reported that a few fabrics and some papers can be adversely affected by ozone, also some dyes used to color them, glues, etc. The risk seems small overall if treatment is minimized - I've never had an issue with this - but it's there nonetheless.

What about mildew or mold? If you're going to zap books with these infestations, yes, a generator can eliminate the odor, theoretically, but if you don't get it all - and how will you know if you do? - where are you? At an ethical crossroads. Though odds are somewhat slim, a small number of remaining active spores (which would be difficult to detect by smelling) could eventually propagate into a big problem. If the book travels to another library, it could spread the problem to other books. It's one thing if you're risking a book you plan to keep, quite another if you're selling it.

A final warning: Do make the effort to investigate the potential for ozone generators to adversely affect your health before you do anything else. Also explore methods to eliminate these risks. There's far more information about this online today, and I can't emphasize enough that the responsibility for whatever happens is on you and you alone. Whatever you do, do not plunge ahead blindly solely on the basis of this article. Consider this BookThink's formal disclosure.

MicroChamber paper:

If you haven't heard of MicroChamber paper and have a valuable or semi-valuable book or two with any unpleasant odor - smoke, "basement" odor, mildew, etc., you might want to try this. This ultra-thin paper is used by book conservators, museums, serious comic book collectors and other interested souls to completely and permanently remove odors. It also slows and/or stops the progression of damage from acidic paper, which of course has been used for many years to print books on the cheap, much to our chagrin. Note that it will not treat active mildew or mold, only the odors emitted from them, so this will be needed to addressed first.

Briefly, MicroChamber paper uses something called SPZ zeolite technology, a proprietary process that literally traps volatile organics permanently. (I'll leave it to you to seek more information on this.) It works with any paper product. If used on a book, individual sheets are inserted between pages and can be spaced out some and still accomplish deodorization, though the fewer sheets used, the longer things will take. Unlike ozone, it's safe to handle and breathe, and it's archival; it won't harm or discolor the paper it's used on.

Sounds good so far? There are some downsides. There is a limit to how much a single sheet will absorb, whereupon it will be saturated and stop working, though happily it will not release anything that it has already trapped. I haven't to date experimented enough to give you a feel for how many sheets to use in a book or how long deodorization will take. Obviously, this will depend on the type of paper and the intensity of the odor, but clearly, unlike ozone, it will not happen in an hour or two. A few weeks may be more in the ball park. So far I've simply used it as suggested, inserting some sheets into a book and sealing it tightly in a Ziploc bag. It can be used without sealing it, but this will greatly speed up its saturation.

Another downside is cost. Look to pay $.50 to $1.00 a sheet. This matters only if the sheets can't be used multiple times or if many sheets are required to achieve the desired result. I'm still experimenting. One particular experiment I'm anxious to try is to set things up in a container, similar to the ozone generator protocol, with a book fanned open and a fan blowing on it. Since the sheets will be loosely inserted, I suspect that I might have to secure them to the leaves in the book with something benign like soft plastic paper clips. In any case, I'm guessing this might speed up the process significantly - and of course you can do this inside in any room.

An update will follow as soon as I get further along in my experimentation.

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