Conservation of our cultural heritage is fundamental for conveying to future generations our culture, traditions, and ways of thinking and behaving. Cleaning art, in particular modern/contemporary paintings, with traditional tools could be risky and impractical, particularly on large collections of important works to be transferred to future generations. We report on advanced cleaning systems, based on twin-chain polymer networks made of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) chains, semiinterpenetrated (semi-IPN) with PVA of lower molecular weight (L-PVA). Interpenetrating L-PVA causes a change from gels with oriented channels to sponge-like semi-IPNs with disordered interconnected pores, conferring different gel (and solvent) dynamics. These features grant residue-free, time efficient cleaning capacity and effective dirt capture, defeating risks for the artifact, making possible a safer treatment of important collections, unconceivable with conventional methods. We report as an example the conservation of Jackson Pollock’s masterpieces, cleaned in a controlled way, safety and selectivity with unprecedented performance.

Nanosystems and confinement tools for the controlled release of a cleaning agent, e.g., hydrogels and microemulsions, have been used for several years for the treatment of delicate surfaces in art restoration interventions. However, notwithstanding the unprecedented achievements from an application point of view, a fundamental comprehension of their interaction mechanism is still lacking. In this study PVA hydrogels, obtained via freeze-thaw processes, are prepared as scaffolds for water-based nanostructured fluids for application in the cleaning of artworks: rheological, thermal, microscopic and scattering techniques showed that, depending on the number of freeze-thaw cycles, the hydrogels exhibit different physicochemical and viscoelastic properties, making them suitable for application in a broad range of cleaning issues. The gels have been loaded with an oil-in-water microemulsion and the diffusion of the microemulsion droplets inside the polymeric network has been investigated through Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy (FCS), demonstrating that the microemulsion is permanently kept inside the matrix and can freely diffuse in the network. In addition, we show that when the gel-microemulsion system is put in contact with a layer of hydrophobic grime, a dynamic interaction between the microemulsion droplets and the underlying layer is established, leading to the solubilization of the hydrophobic molecules inside the droplets in the gel matrix. Thus, for the first time, through FCS, insights into the removal mechanism of hydrophobic grime upon interaction with a cleaning agent embedded in the polymeric matrix are obtained.

Bronze artifacts constitute a fundamental portion of Cultural Heritage, but effective methodologies for the removal of corrosion layers, such as those produced by the “bronze disease”, are currently missing. We propose the formulation and application of novel poly­(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (pHEMA) networks semi-interpenetrated (SIPN) with poly­(acrylic acid) (PAA) to achieve enhanced capture of copper ions and removal of corrosion products. The pHEMA/PAA SIPNs were designed to improve previous pHEMA/poly­(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) networks, taking advantage of the chelating ability of pH-responsive carboxylic groups in PAA. Increasing the pH ionizes carboxyls, increases the porosity in pHEMA/PAA, and leads to the co-presence of enol and enolate forms of vinylpyrrolidone (VP), changing the macroporosity and decreasing the mesh size in pHEMA/PVP. The ion–matrix interaction is stronger in pHEMA/PAA, where the process occurs through an initial diffusion-limited step followed by diffusion in smaller pores or adsorption by less available sites. In pHEMA/PVP, the uptake is probably controlled by adsorption as expected, considering the porogen role of PVP in the network. Upon application of the SIPNs loaded with tetraethylenpentamine (TEPA) onto corroded bronze, copper oxychlorides dissolve and migrate inside the gels, where Cu­(II) ions form ternary complexes with TEPA and carboxylates in PAA or carbonyls in PVP. The removal of oxychlorides is more effective and faster for pHEMA/PAA than its /PVP counterpart. The selective action of the gels preserved the cuprite layers that are needed to passivate bronze against corrosion, and the pH-responsive behavior of pHEMA/PAA allows full control of the uptake and release of the Cu­(II)–TEPA complex, making these systems appealing in several fields even beyond Cultural Heritage conservation (e.g., drug delivery, wastewater treatment, agricultural industry, and food chemistry).

This paper reports on the evaluation of a polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) "twin-chain" polymer network (TC-PN) combined with an oil-in-water nanostructured fluid (NSF) for the removal of a polyvinyl acetate (PVAc) varnish. Small Angle X-ray Scattering, Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy, and Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy showed that the structure of the gel and the NSF are only minimally altered by loading the fluid into the gel. The NSF is partially free to diffuse through the network, but also interacts with the gel walls. During the cleaning, the dynamics of the fluid at the gel-substrate interface are controlled by the osmotic balance taking place among the interconnected pores. These features grant effective and controlled cleaning performances. The case study identified for this research is Pablo Picasso's The Studio (L'Atelier, 1928), one of the masterpieces in the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice (PGC). In 1969 the oil painting, originally unprotected, was wax-lined and then varnished using a PVAc varnish. Over the years, the white shades of the painting have been compromised by the yellowing of the varnish and soiling of deposits. On painting mock-ups, the NSF-loaded hydrogels allowed the swelling and softening of PVAc varnish and wax layers, which were then removed with gentle mechanical action. Effective varnish and wax removal at the micron scale, and the absence of residues from the cleaning system (gel and NSF), were confirmed by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) 2D imaging. The effective and safe removal of the aged PVAc varnish and wax layer from the surface of the painting was then carried out using the same cleaning protocol successfully tested on the mock-ups, setting the NSF-loaded PVA TC-PNs as robust and reliable tools for the cleaning of sensitive works of art.