[Nhcoll-l] Polyfill/foam to replace disintegrating 60s yellow polyurethane foam in specimen trays?

[Shoobs, Nate]

Hi there,
I’m looking for a replacement material that can be purchased in bulk to replace sheets of yellow open cell polyurethane foam from the 60s/70s used to line specimen trays in the collection of mollusks at the OSU Museum of Biological Diversity. The foam sheets were cut to a few standard sizes (2” x  3” to 7.75” x 11.75”) by former collections staff from larger rolls of foam, and fit into trays to keep specimens of fragile bivalves from chipping. The sheets are about 4mm thick.

Across the entire collection the sheets are either disintegrating into a fine yellow dust, or decomposing into a “sticky” substance (and without doubt releasing lots of volatile organic vapor) leading to discoloration and damage to shell specimens. Clearly, based on observations of foam stored in closed boxes / left out in the air, there is some sort of oxidation reaction occurring.

I have considered replacing the foam with:

  *   Polyester/dacron batting (in rolls, then cut into sheets in-house)
  *   Polyester/dacron Polyfill (manually packed into trays in-house)
  *   Various types of archival/inert foams, such as Sekisui Voltek Volara (cut into sheets either by manufacturer or in-house)

All suppliers I can find in the archival/museum quality materials business are prohibitively expensive (on the order of tens of thousands of dollars for the amounts I need).


  1.  Does anyone know of a good replacement material foam sheets that isn’t exorbitantly priced? Preferably this would be something I could buy in rolls of varying widths, with a thickness of
  2.  For simple polyfill/dacron polyester, is the stuff sold by Gaylord/University products actually significantly different than the normal commercial grade?
     *   Does anyone have a line on a good supplier for high quality polyfill?
Thanks!
Nate
—
Nathaniel F. Shoobs, B.A., M.Sc.
Curator of Mollusks
Dept. of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology
The Ohio State University Museum of Biological Diversity, Columbus, OH

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