António Pereira, A. Candeias, A. Cardoso, J. Mirão, A. T. Caldeira
{"title":"Plastic toy soldiers, a lost battle? – an analytical perspective","authors":"António Pereira, A. Candeias, A. Cardoso, J. Mirão, A. T. Caldeira","doi":"10.14568/cp2020002","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The conservation and preservation of museum collections requires a detailed understanding of their constituent materials which are often natural, synthetic or semi-synthetic polymers. The use of a wide variety of instrumental techniques can give an extraordinary amount of quality information, by delivering complementary data regarding composition and structure.\n\nThis study was triggered by the Oporto Military Museum (Museu Militar do Porto) conservators who observed that a set of plastic toy soldiers dating back to the middle of the 20th century from the museum exhibition started to present severe and accelerated degradation process.\n\nWith this is mind, the authors envisaged a methodology for the characterisation of these soldier toys that compromised elemental, structural and morphologic analysis, to allow the identification of polymers, their additives, and the degradation products. The methodology comprised stereoscopic microscopy and VP-SEM-EDS to recognize the micromorphology, ATR-FTIR to identify the polymer, 1H and 13C NMR to identify their additives, and micro-XRD to identify degradation products with a crystal structure.\n\nWith this complementary analytical approach the composition of the toy soldiers was identified as being made of cellulose acetate plastic with triphenyl phosphate and dimethyl phthalate as major additives, and crystallyne efflorescence of triphenyl phosphate were identified as a degradation product. This methodology shows to be very adequate for a detailed characterization of plastic artefacts in museum environments.","PeriodicalId":55942,"journal":{"name":"Conservar Patrimonio","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2020-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Conservar Patrimonio","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.14568/cp2020002","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
The conservation and preservation of museum collections requires a detailed understanding of their constituent materials which are often natural, synthetic or semi-synthetic polymers. The use of a wide variety of instrumental techniques can give an extraordinary amount of quality information, by delivering complementary data regarding composition and structure.
This study was triggered by the Oporto Military Museum (Museu Militar do Porto) conservators who observed that a set of plastic toy soldiers dating back to the middle of the 20th century from the museum exhibition started to present severe and accelerated degradation process.
With this is mind, the authors envisaged a methodology for the characterisation of these soldier toys that compromised elemental, structural and morphologic analysis, to allow the identification of polymers, their additives, and the degradation products. The methodology comprised stereoscopic microscopy and VP-SEM-EDS to recognize the micromorphology, ATR-FTIR to identify the polymer, 1H and 13C NMR to identify their additives, and micro-XRD to identify degradation products with a crystal structure.
With this complementary analytical approach the composition of the toy soldiers was identified as being made of cellulose acetate plastic with triphenyl phosphate and dimethyl phthalate as major additives, and crystallyne efflorescence of triphenyl phosphate were identified as a degradation product. This methodology shows to be very adequate for a detailed characterization of plastic artefacts in museum environments.
博物馆藏品的保护和保存需要详细了解其组成材料,这些材料通常是天然、合成或半合成聚合物。通过提供有关成分和结构的补充数据,使用各种仪器技术可以提供大量高质量的信息。这项研究是由波尔图军事博物馆(Museu Militar do Porto)的管理员发起的,他们观察到博物馆展览中的一套可追溯到20世纪中期的塑料玩具士兵开始呈现严重且加速的退化过程。考虑到这一点,作者设想了一种对这些士兵玩具进行表征的方法,该方法损害了元素、结构和形态分析,从而能够识别聚合物、其添加剂和降解产物。该方法包括立体显微镜和VP-SEM-EDS来识别微观形态,ATR-FTIR来识别聚合物,1H和13C NMR来识别其添加剂,以及微XRD来识别具有晶体结构的降解产物。通过这种补充分析方法,玩具士兵的成分被确定为由醋酸纤维素塑料制成,磷酸三苯酯和邻苯二甲酸二甲酯是主要添加剂,磷酸三苯基酯的结晶风化被确定为降解产物。这种方法被证明非常适合在博物馆环境中对塑料制品进行详细的表征。
期刊介绍:
Conservar Património is a journal, published three times a year, that intends to create a space for the diffusion of conservator-restorers’ studies and activities. However, at a time when Conservation-Restoration pretends to develop further through collaboration with other areas of knowledge, such as History of Art, Archaeology, Museum Studies, Chemistry, Physics, Biology and other related disciplines from the fields of the natural and social sciences, the journal also receives contributions from any other provenance as long as directed towards the multiple dimensions of the works that integrate our Cultural Heritage. Theoretical issues on the conservation activity may also be submitted.