Lipstick, Warhol and Oxygen Atoms

Lipstick, Warhol and Oxygen Atoms

It isn”t too often that one is concerned about removing lipstick

from a bathtub. You certainly would not guess that someone

working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

(NASA) would be approached to handle such a delicate project.

Yet, this is precisely what happened. I”ve often mentioned that I

was employed at the National Advisory Committee for

Aeronautics (NACA), Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in

Cleveland from 1950-1952. This is now NASA”s John Glenn

Research Center. While there I shared a lab with a fellow by the

name of George Fryburg, who was studying oxygen atoms.

George was especially interested in the reaction of oxygen atoms

with metals such as platinum.

The oxygen that we breathe is in the form of oxygen molecules,

which are two oxygen atoms hooked together. Add another

oxygen atom and we have ozone. Split the oxygen molecule

apart and we have oxygen atoms. George”s first problem was to

split normal oxygen and to do this he used what is known as a

Wood”s tube. His Wood”s tube was a piece of glassware

apparatus having a couple of electrodes. Oxygen was fed

through the tube at a low pressure and an electric discharge was

generated between the electrodes by putting several thousand

volts across them. In this discharge, resembling the discharge in

a neon signor lamp, the oxygen molecules pick up enough energy

to split the molecule. The resulting oxygen atoms travel down

the tube where they react with a piece of platinum metal.

Platinum is usually a pretty unreactive metal. However, these

oxygen atoms are anxious to grab onto something and they do,

forming a platinum oxide. The incentive for George to start this

project was the presence of oxygen atoms in a nuclear reactor

environment. I”ve mentioned previously that at NACA we were

supposed to be working on the deservedly ill-fated nuclear

powered airplane.

After I left NACA for Bell Labs, George”s work on oxygen

atoms was revived in connection with NASA”s upcoming space

shuttle. You”ve seen pictures of the fiery reentry of these babies

and at those temperatures there are gobs of oxygen atoms

formed. For the skin of the shuttle, NASA needed to have a

tough material that would stand up to the reentry environment. It

seemed that a logical candidate would be an alloy known to stand

up at high temperatures. What about the nichrome alloy that

we”re all familiar with, the wire used in our toasters? It certainly

gets awfully hot and we know our toasters last many years.

Well, initially, that was just the approach that was considered.

Then someone remembered George”s work on oxygen atoms and

asked him to look into the problem. The nichrome alloy has

chromium in it and the chromium is key to the stability of the

alloy at high temperatures in your toaster. In air, with its 20

percent oxygen as oxygen molecules, the chromium forms an

oxide film that protects the alloy from further oxidation. But

when George turned his oxygen atoms loose on the chromium, it

reacted vigorously even at pretty low temperatures. Chances

were that a nichrome alloy skin would disintegrate on reentry!

So, instead of an alloy, NASA opted for the tedious “pasting” of

ceramic tiles on the outer surface of the space shuttle, an

approach that has worked fine for all these years.

This interest in oxygen atoms at my old stomping ground did not

go away, as I found in an article titled “Rocket Science and Art

Restoration” by Kristin Olson in the January issue of Discover

magazine. Here”s where the lipstick comes in. In another of my

old haunts, Pittsburgh, there was a gala opening of an exhibition

at the Andy Warhol Museum. One of Andy”s paintings,

“Bathtub”, is a rather simple black and white painting. To me,

it”s a line drawing of a bathtub with ornate feet on a white

background. The morning after the gala it was discovered that

someone was so enamored with the work that she or he planted a

kiss on said tub! Warhol had not bothered to cover this painting

with the customary protective coat of varnish and the lipstick

posed a very difficult problem for art conservator Ellen Baxter

and her colleague William Real. The red lipstick on the white

background, if treated with conventional solvents, would have

dissolved and wormed its way into the canvas leaving an

unacceptable pink stain.

The problem was so vexing that it was beginning to look like the

bathtub would never again be shown to the public. Frankly, I”m

surprised that some avant-garde artist would not consider

claiming that the lipstick itself, placed in such an unusual

context, was itself a work of art. But then again, I”m not noted

for my expertise in the art world. Enter our white knights from

Cleveland to the rescue in the form of Bruce Banks and Sharon

Miller of NASA Glenn. They had been, knowingly or not,

following in the footsteps of my friend George and his oxygen

atoms.

For NASA, oxygen atoms are still a real pain. Out in space

where shuttles and space stations wander, there happens to be a

fair number of oxygen atoms formed when UV light from the sun

hits and knocks apart oxygen molecules. Without protective

coatings, the polymers used, for example, to hold the solar cell

modules together would be attacked by the oxygen atoms and

our multibillion-dollar effort would go to pot. Banks and Miller

were studying the resistance of various kinds of polymer and

coating materials to attack by oxygen atoms.

One of the current goals in most of today”s government labs is to

interact with universities and other outside entities in developing

other uses for the science and technology coming out of the

government-sponsored research. Banks and Miller”s turn came

when they were contacted by an art conservator, Kenneth Be

(accent over the e) of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Ken was

wanted to clean up some oil paintings covered with thick layers

of soot resulting from a fire in the church where they were hung.

You guessed correctly that Banks and Miller suggested oxygen

atoms. Otherwise, why would I be writing about this? But there

is good chemistry behind it. The soot is sort of mangy, loosely

bound gunk that wouldn”t be averse to pairing up with some

oxygen. The paints underneath, however, are oxides of various

metals and they already have quite their share of oxygen, with no

desire for any more.

Just as you don”t go prescribing a new drug without running

definitive tests first (hopefully), you don”t go blasting oxygen

atoms at a 19th century oil painting without some background

information. You bring in the Cleveland fire department to set

fire to mock living rooms hung with paintings that you wouldn”t

hang in your doghouse. You then take these suitably sooted

paintings into your low-pressure chamber, shoot oxygen atoms at

them and what do you know? All the soot converts to volatile

carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and water. You also find that a

charcoal marking on the back of one of the paintings is not

affected. Now you”re sure that the only cleaning that occurs will

be where you point the oxygen atoms. If you”re Banks and

Miller you then take a real 19th century painting into your

atmospheric chamber and go to work with your oxygen atoms.

The painting springs to life with more vivid colors and details

than were visible before the fire. The oxygen atoms have

removed not only the soot from the fire but also the other gunk

accumulated over a century or so.

But the conservators in Pittsburgh are an ornery lot. They don”t

trust the Bathtub in the changing pressure and humidity of the

NASA chamber. Also, they want the approach tested on lipstick

itself. So, thinly painted canvases were sent to Cleveland and,

according to the Discover article, interns from the Ohio

Aerospace Institute planted lipstick on the test canvases. I”m not

aware why the interns were chosen or whether they were male or

female. At any rate, the lipstick disappeared like a charm and

Banks and Miller were off to Pittsburgh with a portable oxygen

atom gun.

The gun is sort of neat in that an electric arc (like in George”s

Wood”s tube) forms the oxygen atoms and a stream of inert

helium gas carries the atoms out of the gun to the painting. The

helium keeps the oxygen atoms from reacting with the air en

route. After a day”s work with the gun, Warhol”s bathtub

emerged lipstickless and it is again hanging in the Warhol

Museum. That doesn”t mean that Warhol”s other efforts are

trouble free. At a Warhol exhibit in Vienna, another idiot has

used a felt-tip marker to deface two paintings of Liza Minelli.

One more test to come for the oxygen atoms.

Egyptian tombs provide another venue for Banks and Miller to

test their oxygen gun. The soot from candles serving over the

years to light the way for various archaeologists has darkened the

tomb paintings. And in New York there”s a Monet that was

charred in a fire in a gallery in 1958. My goodness, the

possibilities are boundless. Think of all the soot-covered

buildings and statues that could be cleaned with a really big

oxygen gun!

I thank my friend George for supplying me with details of his

later work. He should be quite proud that his fundamental

studies were the prelude to findings of real practical value both in

space and down here on earth.

Allen F. Bortrum