Consolidating polymeric materials for protection of cultural heritage

Abstract

Consolidating polymeric materials are increasingly used for protection of the original artistic objects in museums and cultural heritage sites. Application of different polymeric materials onto outdoor cultural heritage objects requires careful evaluation and assessment in simulation and accelerated testing prior to any application being taken. Because of natural ecosystem, ambient microbiota together with the environmental factors (particularly sunlight, water/moisture, and water, such as wet-and-dry, and freeze-and-thaw cycles) is a key element that plays an important role to the integrity survival of the materials and cannot be ignored completely from application. The ecosystem-cultural heritage-microbial community continuum needs to be recognized with a clear holistic understanding of the framework or structure of this topic so that the science of it can be conducted meaningfully to serve the purpose to support the protection in a long run. Many of these basics are still missing while application is being made. This topic deserves serious attention to make fundamental progress in science.