Sustainable approach for historic paper conservation

The coating was developed based on cellulose nanocrystals of an average diameter of 10 nm extracted from cotton fiber. Then, inorganic halloysite nanotubes were uniformly dispersed in cellulose nanocrystals colloidal solution producing new transparent reinforcing composite for historical paper. The mass loadings of both cellulose nanocrystals and nanotubes were altered and studied.

Historic paper conservation

The new coating was applied for conservation of real written historic paper produced last century. The tensile strength and thermal stability of the consolidated historic paper was significantly improved. The tensile strength of reinforced historic paper achieved enhancement by 28% and two-fold compared to pristine historic paper before and after thermal aging, respectively. Besides, the calorimetric measurement indicated the suitability of transparent conservative coating layer for written historic paper without altering the optical properties. Moreover, the reinforcing coating layer significantly improved the UV protection ability of consolidated historic paper achieving excellent protection compared to pristine historic paper. According to the scientists, the developed multifunctional conservative layer developed in their study, presents a new, green and sustainable approach for historic paper conservation.