AIC's 45th Annual Meeting

Graphic artworks and documents, made of translucent or transparent supports, are omnipresent in archives and museums collections. Thin papers, tracing papers, cellulose acetate sheets or films are a few examples. But these supports are in general delicate and fragile, and the artworks and documents made on these materials can very often have some structural alterations, which can be a major problem for handling, consultation, digitization or exhibition. The field of nanotechnologies offers new possibilities to solve these specific problems. The main objective of the present study is to introduce new and innovative mending materials, in particular nanocellulose films. The study focuses on one kind of nanocellulose, the microfibrillated cellulose (generally abbreviated MFC). This material has the best properties of cellulose, combined with some promising characteristics of nanomaterials. For instance, a MFC film is made of pure cellulose and so is very stable. It can be as transparent as a polyester film like mylar. Also, a film that is composed of microfibrils with a width of a few nanometers, can be very thin (with a thickness of a few µm) and at the same time have a high mechanical strength. In the first part, this material, these unique properties and the chemical processes to produce MFC will be defined. The second part will present the main results of research carried out at the National Library of France (BnF, Paris, France) on MFC films, such as the comparison with four thin Japanese papers generally used to mend tears on translucent artworks, its combination with different adhesives, and artificial aging tests (light, temperature and humidity) as well as mechanical strength tests. MFC films were used for the first time on museum objects, to mend large tears of some optical viewing slides made of thin and translucent papers, which belong to the French Museum of Cinema (la Cinémathèque française, Paris, France). Compared to traditional repair methods, the MFC film results were best suited for the treatment. The repair method developed will be presented. The third part will report the first results from new research to be carried out at the Research Center for Conservation (CRC, Paris, France) starting in the fall 2016. This project will entail a partnership with American and French nanocellulose manufacturing laboratories and the French Museum of Cinema. Different types of nanocellulose films will be made. Further mechanical and chemical tests will be conducted on unaged and artificially aged films, in order to better characterize the films, such as pH and mechanical strength measurements, molar mass determinations, SEM measurements and fungal resistance tests. The films will be applied on a wide range of cinema and animation film media from the Museum collections, made of translucent and transparent supports. This research will be an opportunity to gather new information about the nanomaterial itself and its new potential applications in the field of conservation. The various aspects of the commercialization of MFC films for museums and conservators will be presented as well.