Determination of the Conservation State of Some Documents Written on Cellulosic Support in the Poni-Cernătescu Museum, Iași City in Romania

Abstract

An important step in the conservation of old paper documents is the analysis of both the medium and the ink, in an attempt first to determine the extent of deterioration and degradation and then to choose the best preservation and restoration solutions. Our paper focuses on the analysis of three old documents displayed at the ‘Poni-Cernătescu’ Museum in Iaşi City, Romania by optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX), micro-FTIR spectroscopy and FT-Raman. Thus, the morphology and chemical composition of the paper media and the type of ink, as well as the cellulose crystallinity index were determined. PCA (Principal Component Analysis) was also used while relying on spectra collected by FTIR spectroscopy. We were able to determine the extent of degradation of the documents by corroborating all these findings.

New Materials and Advanced Procedures of Conservation Ancient Artifacts

“…The last paper [7] focuses on the study of the state of preservation of old documents on paper with inscriptions based on different types of ink, in an attempt to first determine the degree of damage and degradation and then to choose the best preservation solutions and restoration. The paper focuses on the analysis of three old documents exhibited at the "Poni-Cernătescu" Museum in Ias , i, Romania, which were analyzed by optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX), micro-FTIR and FT-Raman spectroscopy.…”