New look for antiques

Paintings and gilt surfaces can be effectively and gently restored with water-based microemulsions

This release is available in German.

		IMAGE: Oil-in-water nanocontainers within an aqueous polymer network were effective for the low-impact selective cleaning of painted and gilded surfaces. Interactions with the polymer (black in the schematic illustration) did not... Click here for more information.

In the past, restoration of paintings and other old artwork often involved application of acrylic resins to consolidate and protect them. One of the most important tasks for modern restorers is thus to remove these layers, because it turns out that acrylic resins not only drastically change the optics of the treated artwork, but in many cases they accelerate their degradation. Italian researchers working with Piero Baglioni at the University of Florence have now developed a technique to effectively remove such old polymer layers from sensitive historic artworks. As the researchers report in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the new cleaning system involves only a tiny proportion of volatile organic compounds. "We have demonstrated the first successful application of a water-based system for the removal of an organic layer from artwork," says Baglioni. "In addition, our method is simpler and less invasive than traditional processes."