Abstract
TO REMOVE the ravages of time and grime from works of fine art, restoration experts have an entire palette of tools to choose from. Piero Baglioni would like to offer them another option: a sponge. It’s no ordinary sponge though. By enlisting magnetic nanoparticles, Baglioni, a chemistry professor at Italy’s University of Florence, has created a material that can soak up cleaning solutions or microemulsions; squeeze them out onto the surface of a painting, fresco, or sculpture; and then reabsorb them without a human hand ever coming into contact with the delicate artwork ( Langmuir 2007 , 23 , 8681). Baglioni calls the material a nanomagnetic sponge. According to him, it is one of the most advanced, versatile systems for cleaning works of art. “This is better and faster than traditional methods,” he says. Technically speaking, the sponges aren’t very spongy. Instead, they are more like a solid hydrogel. Baglioni and his colleagues Massimo Bonini, Sebastian Lenz, and ...
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