Sustainable Packaging Material Based on PCL Nanofibers and Lavandula luisieri Essential Oil, to Preserve Museological Textiles.

Ester F Ferreira,Isabel C Gouveia,Cláudia Mouro,Lúcia Silva

doi:10.3390/polym14030597

Abstract

The connection with textiles is one of the oldest traditions in humanity, and in the historical scenario, textiles and clothing deal with material culture. Therefore, preservation is of the utmost importance to keep this important heritage. Packaging and protection of museological textiles is imperative due to the risks that these articles suffer, mainly concerning the attack of microorganisms that promote the acceleration of their degradation, and it is still necessary to create a proper packing material. In the present work we describe a bibliographic review about the museological scenario, focused on the packaging for preservation of textile articles, as well as the techniques usually used in preventive material conservation. Future perpsctives for the improvement in the conservation of museological textiles are also given. This research aims to produce a sustainable material based on polycaprolactone (PCL), with and without antimicrobial function by incorporating Lavandula luisieri essential oil (EO), in the form of a non-woven substrate for museological packaging. A comparison was made with the most frequently used materials, such as raw cotton and a non-woven polyester. The results demonstrated that both PCL and PCL + EO obtained a good characterization for museological application with good breaking strength and excellent whiteness index. In addition, PCL + EO showed a high bacterial reduction when compared with other protective materials frequently used in museums. Therefore, these findings emphasize the potential use of this material as an innovative protective antibacterial museological packaging solution, able to safeguard and preserve textile museum and clothing collections for longer and for future generations.

Highlights

IntroductionNowadays people’s awareness has grown about the need to document, conserve, and preserve the knowledge acquired since ancient times, in particular about textile articles, such as fibers, yarns, fabrics, knits, embroidery, and lace, among others that are in several museums, to establish the relationship between clothing and history helping to understand the culture of a particular people or period [1].One of the main factors that justifies this research is the report that the amount of textile objects in museum collections is extremely small in comparison with objects of other materials, due to the difficulty of safeguarding these items which requires delicate conservation processes and complex actions in cases of restoration, in addition to the fact that textiles suffer natural and easy deterioration [2].The acceleration of textile degradation occurs through the growth of microorganisms since textile substrates give the carbon source for these organisms
One of the most used museological packaging materials to separate garments from each other, or involving articles for protection, is raw cotton textile without gum, but it is noted that this material retains dust due to the textile fabric structure, requiring constant aspiration and additional care. This material needs further investigation regarding the relevance of its use, because due to its chemical composition it is susceptible to microbial growth, constituting a carbon source for microorganisms [13–15]
The essential oil (EO) of Lavandula luisieri was analysed by Gas ChromatographyMass Spectroscopy (GC-MS) using an Agilent 7890 GC coupled with an Agilent 5975 C inert XL mass selective detector (MSD), operated in the electron impact EI mode, scan range = 50–500 amu, and scan rate = 3.99 sans/sec), and an Agilent

Summary

Introduction

Nowadays people’s awareness has grown about the need to document, conserve, and preserve the knowledge acquired since ancient times, in particular about textile articles, such as fibers, yarns, fabrics, knits, embroidery, and lace, among others that are in several museums, to establish the relationship between clothing and history helping to understand the culture of a particular people or period [1].One of the main factors that justifies this research is the report that the amount of textile objects in museum collections is extremely small in comparison with objects of other materials, due to the difficulty of safeguarding these items which requires delicate conservation processes and complex actions in cases of restoration, in addition to the fact that textiles suffer natural and easy deterioration [2].The acceleration of textile degradation occurs through the growth of microorganisms since textile substrates give the carbon source for these organisms. One of the main factors that justifies this research is the report that the amount of textile objects in museum collections is extremely small in comparison with objects of other materials, due to the difficulty of safeguarding these items which requires delicate conservation processes and complex actions in cases of restoration, in addition to the fact that textiles suffer natural and easy deterioration [2]. The action of microorganisms causes undesirable changes in textile articles, such as stains, reduced structural strength, and color changes, or even complete degradation of the material [5]. Another issue that hinders the work of institutions is related to the difficult selection of a suitable antimicrobial for textiles since each fiber has a different composition. There is a wide range of microorganisms that attack the fibers and a wrong choice of antimicrobial can accelerate further the degradation of the material [6,7]

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