Classifying Degraded Modern Polymeric Museum Artefacts by Their Smell. Issue 25 (2nd March 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Curran, Katherine; Underhill, Mark; Grau‐Bové, Josep; Fearn, Tom; Gibson, Lorraine T.; Strlič, Matija
• Is Part Of: Angewandte Chemie international edition. Volume 57:Issue 25(2018)
• Page Start: 7336
• Page End: 7340
• Publication Date: 2018-03-02
• Subjects: gas chromatography -- heritage science -- mass spectrometry -- plastics conservation -- volatile organic compound analysis; Chemistry -- Periodicals; 540
• DOI: 10.1002/anie.201712278
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1433-7851

Abstract

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. Abstract : Sniffing out decay : Detection of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) has been studied widely in disease diagnosis and it has many advantages that make it relevant to understanding the condition of cultural heritage artefacts. The feasibility of using VOC detection is explored to assess degradation in modern heritage objects made of plastic, including artefacts from the collections at Tate.