Nanorestart: Nanomaterials for the restoration of works of art

Abstract

© The Author(s) 2021. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creat iveco mmons .org/licen ses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creat iveco mmons .org/publi cdoma in/ zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. Cultural Heritage (CH) represents a fundamental societal, ethical and economical resource, and a driver for education and social inclusion. To grant these benefits, however, CH assets need to be preserved and accessible. In particular, the conservation of modern and contemporary works of art requires advanced solutions at the cutting edge of modern chemistry and material science. Works from this era often display mixed media and materials derived from the industry that were not conceive to last long, as well as substrates with enhanced sensitiveness to water and organic solvents. Just to mention few examples, restoring modern/contemporary painted art can prove challenging when it comes to remove soiling deposited on the paint surfaces, especially in the case of works that are not varnished; the canvasses of the paintings can also become fragile by oxidative and acid-catalyzed degradation reactions; besides, tapes and adhesives on contemporary artifacts are difficult to remove owing to degradation processes and to the intrinsic sensitiveness of paper, inks and dyes; finally, outdoor sculptures and mural paintings are exposed to the progressively more adverse conditions caused by concerning climate changes. In response to these challenges, the EU funded H2020 NANORESTART project (NANOmaterials for the REStoration of works of ART) developed nanoand advanced functionalized materials to ensure long-term protection and security of modern/contemporary CH, taking into account environmental and human risks, feasibility and materials costs. The newly developed tools and materials represent a breakthrough in cultural heritage and conservation science, and focus on: (i) tools for controlled cleaning, such as highly-retentive gels for the confinement of cleaning fluids based on “green” surfactants and solvents; (ii) the strengthening and protection of surfaces by using nanocontainers, nanoparticles and supramolecular systems/assemblies; (iii) nanostructured substrates and sensors for enhanced molecules detection; (iv) evaluation of the environmental impact and the development of security measures for long lasting conservation of cultural heritage. Within the project the industrial scalability of the developed materials has been demonstrated. NANORESTART involved 27 partners from 11 countries, between 2015 and 2018. In a holistic approach to conservation, the project gathered centers of excellence in the field of synthesis and characterization of nanomaterials, world leading chemical Industries and SMEs operating in R&D, and International and European centers for conservation, education and museums. Such centers assessed the new materials on modern/contemporary artifacts in urgent need of conservation, and disseminated the knowledge and the new nanomaterials among conservators on a worldwide perspective. The new solutions, based on green chemistry, have been used to restore masterpieces by Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein, Eva Hesse, Giorgio de Chirico, Lucio Fontana, Jean Dubuffet, and others. Extensive dissemination and training on the new products were carried out, both in the EU and worldwide, and some of the project products are already available on the market. In this collection we group a selection of ten papers to illustrate the highlights of the projects. The selected papers are mainly related (but not limited) to the conservation of easel paintings, as the latter represent one of the most iconic classes of CH objects worldwide. Open Access