Kotb Hamada Sadek, Saccani Andrea, Vallet Jean-Marc, Franzoni Elisa
Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering, University of Bologna, Via Terracini 28, 40131, Bologna, Italy.
Restoration Department, Faculty of Archaeology, Fayoum University, Al-Fayoum, 63514, Egypt.
Sci Rep. 2024 Mar 1;14(1):5115. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-53828-0.
Volatile Binding Media (VBM) are waxy solids that can be used for temporary consolidation of heritage artifacts and architectural surfaces thanks to their spontaneous sublimation at room temperature. They are used to temporary shelter, consolidate or protect materials during high-risk operation, such as excavation, transportation, water-based treatments, etc. Although they are employed since the 1990s, research focused almost entirely on one of them, cyclododecane (CDD), which is by far the most used in onsite applications. However, CDD exhibits some drawbacks, including a fixed sublimation speed that hardly fits into all the possible applications and climates, hence the development of new VBM is strongly needed. In recent years, a certain attention was addressed to menthol as a possible alternative, but the research on other possible substitutes is still lacking. In this paper, a range of different VBM for temporary consolidation of cultural heritage materials was prepared and investigated, including five pure compounds (CDD, cyclododecanol, cyclododecanone, menthol and camphene) and fifteen mixes. These new materials are expected to provide tunable properties in terms of melting temperatures and sublimation rates, allowing their use in a variety of climatic contexts and applications, and to exhibit better properties for onsite applications compared to CDD, such as lower flash point, lower hazard for conservators' health and/or higher availability.
挥发性粘结介质（VBM）是蜡状固体，由于其在室温下会自发升华，可用于对文物和建筑表面进行临时加固。它们用于在高风险操作（如挖掘、运输、水基处理等）期间对材料进行临时保护、加固或防护。尽管自20世纪90年代以来就已使用，但研究几乎完全集中在其中一种——环十二烷（CDD）上，它是目前现场应用中使用最多的。然而，CDD存在一些缺点，包括固定的升华速度，很难适用于所有可能的应用和气候条件，因此迫切需要开发新的VBM。近年来，薄荷醇作为一种可能的替代品受到了一定关注，但对其他可能替代品的研究仍然不足。本文制备并研究了一系列用于文化遗产材料临时加固的不同VBM，包括五种纯化合物（CDD、环十二醇、环十二酮、薄荷醇和莰烯）和十五种混合物。这些新材料有望在熔点和升华速率方面提供可调节的性能，使其能够在各种气候环境和应用中使用，并且与CDD相比，在现场应用中表现出更好的性能，如更低的闪点、对文物保护人员健康的危害更小和/或更高的可用性。
