Abstract
The use of VOC analysis to diagnose degradation in modern polymeric museum artefacts is reported. Volatile organic compound (VOC) analysis is a successful method for diagnosing medical conditions but to date has found little application in museums. Modern polymers are increasingly found in museum collections but pose serious conservation difficulties owing to unstable and widely varying formulations. Solid‐phase microextraction gas chromatography/mass spectrometry and linear discriminant analysis were used to classify samples according to the length of time they had been artificially degraded. Accuracies in classification of 50–83 % were obtained after validation with separate test sets. The method was applied to three artefacts from collections at Tate to detect evidence of degradation. This approach could be used for any material in heritage collections and more widely in the field of polymer degradation.
Highlights
Furfural is a product of the acid-catalysed hydrolysis of cellulose[14] and our results show that Volatile organic compound (VOC) analysis can be used to study this process in cellulose nitrate (CN)
Camphor was detected from all CN samples, this was expected as it was a common plasticiser for CN.[15]
Propanoic acid (PA) is formed from hydrolysis of side groups on cellulose propionate (CP); phthalate plasticiser loss from cellulose ester objects in museums is a known degradation process leading to brittleness and cracking.[16]
Summary
Abstract: The use of VOC analysis to diagnose degradation in modern polymeric museum artefacts is reported. The first use of VOC analysis is reported as a classification tool to study degradation in modern polymeric objects in museums.
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