| Title: | Classifying Degraded Modern Polymeric Museum Artefacts by Their Smell |
| Author(s): | Curran K; Underhill M; Grau-Bove J; Fearn T; Gibson LT; Strlic M; |
| Address: | "UCL Institute for Sustainable Heritage, University College London, 14 Upper Woburn Place, London, WC1 H 0NN, UK. Department of Statistical Science, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK. Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry, University of Strathclyde, Thomas Graham Building, 295 Cathedral Street, Glasgow, G1 1 XL, UK" |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1521-3773 (Electronic) 1433-7851 (Print) 1433-7851 (Linking) |
| 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 |
| Keywords: | gas chromatography heritage science mass spectrometry plastics conservation volatile organic compound analysis; |
| Notes: | "PubMed-not-MEDLINECurran, Katherine Underhill, Mark Grau-Bove, Josep Fearn, Tom Gibson, Lorraine T Strlic, Matija eng Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Germany 2018/02/07 Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2018 Jun 18; 57(25):7336-7340. doi: 10.1002/anie.201712278. Epub 2018 Mar 2" |
