RESEARCH ARTICLE Anne Chabas 1 & Jean-Pierre Sizun 2 & Lucile Gentaz 1 & Pauline Uring 1 & Alain Phan 1 & Adriana Coman 1 & Stéphane Christophe Alfaro 1 & Mandana Saheb 1 & Edouard Pangui 1 & Pascal Zapf 1 & Florian Huet 3 Received: 15 February 2018 /Accepted: 28 May 2018 /Published online: 8 June 2018 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2018 Abstract An experimental chamber (CIME2) has been specially designed to simulate wet atmospheric deposition on limestones used in Paris cultural heritage. This instrument is a complementary tool to CIME, a previously developed chamber dedicated to the simulation of dry atmospheric deposition on monuments and artifacts. The aim of this paper is to describe CIME2 and charac- terize the wet deposits produced inside it. Mist (fog), drizzle, and rainfall are differentiated in order to document their ability to saturate the limestones most currently used in Paris monuments: The Saint-Maximin’ s limestone, the Liais of Saint-Maximin, and the Chauvigny’ s limestone are tested. The comparison between normalized and environmental petrophysical data shows that in the wet deposition simulations, limestones are not systematically water-saturated. Moreover, the realistic experimental conditions chosen favor a more rapid evaporation of the stone water. The quantification of the non-saturation state is a first step that has to be taken into account to improve the geochemical models used to predict the alteration. Keywords Mist . Drizzle . Rain . Capillary imbibition . Evaporation . Adsorption . Limestone . Paris . Saturation . Unsaturation Introduction Among the various weathering factors affecting the cultural heritage materials, water plays a prominent role. In vapor or liquid phase, water is involved in immission processes such as dry and wet atmospheric deposition, respectively. For carbon- ate stones, the reviews of Livingston (1992), Smith and Viles (2006), and Livingston (2016) identified three main water- dependent weathering mechanisms: dry deposition, karst ef- fect, and acid rain. Dry deposition is the result of reactions involving gaseous pollutants such as SO 2 , NO 2 , particulate matter, water vapor, and the carbonate (i.e., limestone, marble, travertine…) sub- strate. Indeed, water vapor favors the reactivity of gaseous pollutants with the stone’ s surface, leading to an enrichment in sulfur or nitrogen of the deposits appearing on the surface and in the subsurface of the stone. Dry deposition was rec- ognized as the main factor responsible for the development of gypseous black crusts in the parts of the monuments not directly exposed to the rain (Sabbioni 2003; Bonazza and Sabbioni 2016). Moreover, even in absence of pollutant, a relative humidity (RH) higher than 75% enhances the ad- sorption of water on the surface and capillary condensation in the subsurface of minerals (Fripiat et al. 1971) and stone materials (Rousset 2001). In the case of fog or mist event associated with larger (> 95%) RH, a surface condensation occurs on materials whose surface in colder than the air (Camuffo 2016). Highlights • An experimental chamber designed for studying wet deposition on cultural heritage materials is described and characterized. • Petrophysical measurements are performed in simulated Parisian environment. • Rainfall, drizzle, and mist deposits are differentiated to evaluate their ability to saturate different porous networks. Responsible editor: Michel Sablier * Anne Chabas anne.chabas@lisa.u-pec.fr 1 Laboratoire Interuniversitaire des Systèmes Atmosphériques, LISA, UMR CNRS 7583, Université Paris Est Créteil et Université Paris Diderot, Institut Pierre Simon Laplace, 61, av du Général de Gaulle, 94010 Créteil Cedex, France 2 Laboratoire Chrono-environnement UMR6249, CNRS-Université de Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, 16 Route de Gray, 25000 Besançon, France 3 OSU-Efluve, Université Paris Est Créteil Val de Marne, 61, av du Général de Gaulle, 94010 Créteil Cedex, France Environmental Science and Pollution Research (2018) 25:23973–23985 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-2433-0 Water content of limestones submitted to realistic wet deposition: a CIME2 chamber simulation