Attending a lecture by Yvonne Shashoua, Senior Researcher in the Department of Conservation at the National Museum of Denmark, was such a treat, since she is so well-known in the field of plastics conservation, and her session did not disappoint.\u00a0 Her calm, precise, and very approachable speaking style was impressive as she covered a scientific discussion on her current research into cellulose acetate degradation and its interaction with gas absorbents.\u00a0 Since she will be presenting her findings in upcoming journals, I will only briefly go over what I learned and what you missed at this Research & Technical Studies AIC session.
\nShashoua began by reminding us that plastics comprise an increasing proportion of museum collections.\u00a0 Since it is difficult to detect plastic degradation until it reaches an advanced stage, a preventative approach, by either removing the factors causing or accelerating degradation, is usually taken.\u00a0\u00a0 Gas absorbents (silica gel, activated charcoal, Zeolite 4A, and Corrosion Intercept) are frequently used in museum storage and display situations to create a microclimate by removing specific gases.\u00a0 She discussed how these materials are used and how they absorb pollutants, which I found very interesting.
\nFocusing on cellulose acetate, Shashoua discussed the mechanism of degradation (and the breakdown by-product acetic acid) and how additives (plasticizers and fire retardants, which are weakly bonded within the matrix) migrate out ultimately ending in shrinkage.\u00a0 She was curious why the degradation process even begins in a museum environment, which began her in-depth research project. Cellulose acetate, has been used since 1910, but by the 1960s could be found in many objects: imitation mother of pearl, cigarette filters, early Lego bricks,\u00a0 movie film bases and rayon.\u00a0 By conducting a systematic study on the adsorbents\u2019\u00a0 interaction with cellulose acetate, she has found some startling results.\u00a0 The adsorbents in some cases did slow down the onset of autocatalysis, however some also adsorbed the plasticizer and\/or flame inhibitor, resulting in damage.\u00a0 Her results suggest that commonly used absorbents in museums are non-specific and ineffective for cellulose acetate and, by extrapolation, other plastics.\u00a0 She did rate the adsorbents\u00a0 on a sliding scale; so reading her more in-depth post-prints will be a good lesson and\/or review for all of us.\u00a0 All this is startling news!\u00a0 An archival acid-free box might simply be the best defense.\u00a0 Wow.\u00a0 I cannot wait to read her in-depth post-prints and journal articles concerning this fascinating subject.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Attending a lecture by Yvonne Shashoua, Senior Researcher in the Department of Conservation at the National Museum of Denmark, was such a treat, since she is so well-known in the field of plastics conservation, and her session did not disappoint.\u00a0 Her calm, precise, and very approachable speaking style was impressive as she covered a scientific … Continue reading “41st Annual Meeting \u2013 Research & Technical Studies, June 1, \u201cContemporary Conservation for Contemporary Materials\u201d by Yvonne Shashoua”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":7942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,38,16],"tags":[72,222,295,796,923],"class_list":["post-8516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-annual-meeting","category-research-materials-techniques","category-specialty-sessions","tag-aics-41st-annual-meeting","tag-cellulose-acetate","tag-conservation-science","tag-plastics","tag-shashoua"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/166"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}