Piero Baglioni
Department of Chemistry & CSGI, University of Florence, Via della Lastruccia 3 - Sesto Fiorentino, 50019 Florence, Italy.
Email: baglioni@csgi.unifi.it
Works of art and artifacts that constitute our cultural heritage are subject to deterioration. Their surfaces interacting with the environment are the most prone to aging and decay; accordingly, soiling is a prime factor in the degradation of surfaces, chemical and mechanical degradation are often associated to soiling and lead to the disfigurement of a piece of art. The effects of these processes are usually strongly amplified in the presence of protective coatings (mainly acrylic and vinyl polymers), applied in previous restoration treatments. We pioneered the synthesis and the application of several advanced systems for the consolidation and the cleaning of works of art, as hydroxides nanoparticles, microemulsions and chemical/physical gels. All these systems constitute a new platform for Conservation of Cultural Heritage and are characterized by scale lengths below 100 nm in one or more dimensions. Soft matter and Colloids played a major role in the development of new palette of materials for the conservation: microemulsions, physical and chemical gels, magnetic gels, and microemulsion confined in responsive gels are the most important systems developed so far. In this talk examples from self assembled systems for the cleaning or the removal of coatings from pictorial surfaces will be highlighted. Micellar solutions and microemulsions constitute very efficient systems for the removal of acrylic, vinyl and alkyd polymers or grime/soil. These systems (as well as neat solvents used in "traditional" conservation) can be confined into chemical and physical gels having proper nano-domains for the upload or the delivery of compounds from/to the work of art. With the help of chemical gels, fine control of the cleaning procedure can be obtained even for challenging cleanings as water sensitive works of art, where the cleaning can be achieved by using water confined into gels, leaving no residues on the works of art. As an example, I'll report on a recently restored masterpieces as Pollock (in cooperation with Peggy Guggenheim Foundation), Beato Angelico (Pisa), etc..
References
1) P. Baglioni, E. Carretti, D. Chelazzi. Nanomaterials in art conservation. Nature Nanotechnology 10, 287-290, 2015.
2) P. Baglioni, D. Chelazzi, R. Giorgi. Nanotechnologies in the Conservation of Cultural Heritage - A compendium of materials and techniques, Springer 2015
3) P. Baglioni, D. Chelazzi. Nanoscience for the Conservation of Works of Art, Royal Society of Chemistry, 2013.
4) Baglioni, M.; Berti, D.; Teixeira, J.; Giorgi, R.; Baglioni, P. Nanostructured Surfactant-Based Systems for the Removal of Polymers from Wall Paintings: a SANS Study. Langmuir, 2012, 28, 15193–15202.
6) Baglioni, M.; Rengstl, D.; Berti, D.; Bonini, M.; Giorgi, R.; Baglioni, P. Removal of acrylic coatings from works of art by means of nanofluids: understanding the mechanism at the nanoscale. Nanoscale 2010, 2, 1723–1732.
7) R. Giorgi, M. Baglioni, D. Berti, P. Baglioni, New Methodologies for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage: Micellar Solutions, Microemulsions, and Hydroxide Nanoparticles. Acc. Chem. Res. 2010, 43, 695–704.
8) Carretti, E.; Fratini, E.; Berti, D.; Dei, L.; Baglioni, P. Nanoscience for Art Conservation: Oil-in-Water Microemulsions Embedded in a Polymeric Network for the Cleaning of Works of Art. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2009, 48, 8966−8969.
@No kinship is present among the authors. ACK: NANORESTART EU H2020-646063
