Tailored strategies against corrosion of metallic Cultural Heritage
Emma Angelini
Department of Applied Science and Technology, Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy
e-mail: emma.angelini@polito.it
Conservation and valorisation of Cultural Heritage is an essential mission of the Mediterranean Basin Countries, where a great part of the ancient and fascinating witnesses of the human art and creativity is conserved and exhibited, thus contributing to the development of cultural tourism and job opportunities.
The scientific approach to the conservation of archaeological sites and works of art in indoor and outdoor environment is nowadays based on the concept of preventive conservation, which, according to the Conservation Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM-CC), is defined as “all measures and actions aimed at avoiding and minimizing future damages”. Cultural Heritage assets deterioration is the result of several causes, environmental, as light, temperature, humidity, gaseous pollutants, or biological, as biofilms growing on the surface. The negative impact of air pollution becomes more important at higher values of temperature and relative humidity, thus it is expected to increase dramatically with the on-going climate change, both in outdoor and indoor conditions, consequently multipurpose monitoring and control systems become more and more important for developing mitigation solutions. The challenge is the design and development of preventive conservation tools for predicting the onset of heritage degradation, preventing disasters and damages into the historical and archaeological sites, defining protocols for the long-term safeguard of Cultural Heritage healthy conditions.
Scientific and technological solutions for the safeguard of metallic artifacts, developed by the multidisciplinary group of the Politecnico di Torino, are illustrated. They cover a wide panorama of applications, from environmental sensors, smart buttons, to conservation materials and diagnostic tools, as portable instruments for impedance measurements. As a matter of facts, the conservation of metals needs of a complex multi-step approach, which requires a specific interaction with the object in order to identify degradation agents and mechanisms and to establish their chemical-physical stability via tailored conservation treatments.
A highly sensitive and innovative methodology for evaluating the safety level of the museum indoor areas, and more specifically of the interior of the showcases, with respect to the metallic artefacts is under test, from years, in several museums and historical sites, as the Stibbert Museum in Florence, the Egyptian Museum of Cairo, the Villa della Regina in Torino, the Puente de Boyacà in Colombia, the National Museum of Colombia in Bogotà. The methodology is based on the use of an innovative smart sensors network for the continuous monitoring of temperature and relative humidity and of copper, silver, iron reference samples, the chemical-physical characterization of the artefacts corrosion products with the ultimate goal of developing tailored preventive conservation strategies.
- Angelini, , S. Corbellini, D. Fulginiti, S. Grassini, M. Parvis, Innovative monitoring campaign of the environmental conditions of the Stibbert museum in Florence, Applied Physics A, 2016, 122
- Grassini, S. Corbellini, M. Parvis, E. Angelini, F. Zucchi, A simple Arduino-based EIS system for in situ corrosion monitoring of metallic works of art, Measurement, 2018, 114, 508
A. Mezzi, C. Riccucci, T. de Caro, E. Angelini, F. Faraldi, S. Grassini, V. Goudambined use of SA-XPS, XRD, SEM+EDS for the micro-chemical characterization of Ag-based arachaeological artefacts, Surface and Interface Analysis, 2014, 801
Emma Angelini
Emma ANGELINI, graduated in Chemistry at the University of Torino in 1975, she actually works in the Department of Applied Science and Technology, where she was nominated in 1976 Assistant of Physical Chemistry at Politechnic of Torino, in 1985 Associate Professor of Chemistry in the Faculty of Engineering, Politechnic of Torino, in December 2003 Professor of Applied Physical Chemistry. She has been member of the Academic Senate of Politechnic of Torino from November 2001 to November 2003. From 2017 she is Vice-President of the ICC-International Corrosion Council. She teaches Chemistry in the courses of Electronic Engineering, and in the field of e-learning she recorded a course of Chemistry broadcasted by RAI NETTUNO SAT1 and RAI NETTUNO SAT2, by means of HotBird satellite of EUTELSAT. From 2012 till now she is Fellow of ASP (Alta Scuola Politecnica). She is responsible for research projects in the following fields: i) protection of cultural heritage, ii) biomaterials to be employed in restorative dentistry, iii) innovative alloys for employments in electrocatalysis, iiii) surface modification of materials by low pressure plasmas. She is responsible of: (i) Galileo Cooperation Program between Italy and France for the study of a Methodology for the evaluation of the corrosion degree and of the effectiveness of recovering treatments on archaeological metallic artefacts; (ii) European Project Growth NANOMAG (Development Of Innovative Nanocomposites Coating for Magnesium Castings Protection 2002-2005), European Project MATECO (New coatings deposited by PACVD for corrosion protection 2004-2007; (iii) European Project INCOMED EFESTUS (Tailored strategies for the conservation and restoration of archaeological value Cu-based artefacts from Mediterranean Countries 2003-2005), European INCO-MED Project PROMET (Innovative conservation approaches for monitoring and protecting ancient and historic metals collections from the Mediterranean basin 2004-2007, European Project MEDAL – INCOMED – SSA (Mediterranean Conservation Alliance 2007-2008); Progetto Europeo CBWRMED (INCO-2010-6: Capacity Building for Direct Waste Reuse in the Mediterranean Area, 2010-2013), Bilateral Project of high relevance Italy-Egypt (Survey, documentation and characterization of the metallic artefacts stored in the basement of the Egyptian Museum and monitoring of the basement environmental conditions, 2016-2018); Internationalization Projects of Politecnico, Italy-Colombia: Developing cooperation in corrosion science and engineering; Italy-Israel: Tailored strategies for increasing resilience of Cultural Heritage. She is National Expert of MIUR in the International Cooperation Committee (INCO) of FP7. She is scientific referent for two memorandums of understanding for the dissemination of knowledge in the historical scientific field between the Politecnico di Torino-DISAT and the Museo Galileo-Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence and the Museo dell’Arte della Lana of Stia (Arezzzo); in the frame of these protocols, she carries out activities of planning and realization of activities and events aimed at disseminating and divulging scientific knowledge to a wide audience.
The scientific work carried out and the more than 200 papers published may be grouped according to the following items:
1. Corrosion and protection of metallic materials: the research has been devoted to the study of the corrosion resistance of superficially treated steels, duplex stainless steels and sintered steels, amorphous and nanocrystalline alloys.
2. Plasma Chemistry: PECVD coatings for protection of metals, iron alloys, magnesium alloys.
3. Characterization of materials for mass standards: in co-operation with the Metrology Institute Colonnetti electrochemical techniques are applied to the characterization of materials for mass standards in order to study the mass stability.
4. Analysis, corrosion processes and restoration problems on archaeological artifacts – studies of degradation processes on archaeological artifacts, studies of composition, trace elements and lead isotopic ratio of Nuragic bronzes in order to obtain information on the origin of the artifacts; tailored strategies for restoration and conservation of bronzes; innovative plasma technologies for protection of metallic artefacts; EIS portable instrumentation for in situ evaluation of the protective effectiveness of natural and artificial patinas.
5.Studies on biomaterials – the research is carried out mainly on dental materials in environments simulating the oral cavity, in order to evaluate the corrosion resistance and release of ions.