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Classifying Degraded Modern Polymeric Museum Artefacts by Their Smell
Author(s) -
Curran Katherine,
Underhill Mark,
GrauBové Josep,
Fearn Tom,
Gibson Lorraine T.,
Strlič Matija
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.201712278
Subject(s) - cultural heritage , degradation (telecommunications) , linear discriminant analysis , mass spectrometry , gas chromatography–mass spectrometry , archaeology , conservation , computer science , environmental science , chromatography , chemistry , artificial intelligence , geography , telecommunications , environmental planning
The use of VOC analysis to diagnose degradation in modern polymeric museum artefacts is reported. Volatile organic compound (VOC) analysis is a successful method for diagnosing medical conditions but to date has found little application in museums. Modern polymers are increasingly found in museum collections but pose serious conservation difficulties owing to unstable and widely varying formulations. Solid‐phase microextraction gas chromatography/mass spectrometry and linear discriminant analysis were used to classify samples according to the length of time they had been artificially degraded. Accuracies in classification of 50–83 % were obtained after validation with separate test sets. The method was applied to three artefacts from collections at Tate to detect evidence of degradation. This approach could be used for any material in heritage collections and more widely in the field of polymer degradation.