Willneff, EA, Schroeder, SLM and Ormsby, BA (2014) Spectroscopic techniques and the conservation of artists’ acrylic emulsion paints. Heritage Science, 2 (25). 25. ISSN 2050-7445
Abstract
Artists’ acrylic emulsion paints are used in many contexts such as paintings, murals, sculptures, works on paper and mixed media; and are forming increasing proportions of modern and contemporary art collections. Although acrylic emulsion paints have been the focus of museum-led research over the past decade, the impact of artists’ technique and conservation treatment on the upper-most surface of these paints remains essentially unexplored ; This paper summarises previous studies using vibrational (FTIR) spectroscopy and presents initial assessments of paint surfaces using X-ray spectroscopies (XPS and NEXAFS) aimed at characterising artists’ acrylic paint film surfaces after natural ageing and wet surface cleaning treatment. Both techniques were found to be well suited for surface-sensitive investigations of the organic materials associated with artists’ acrylic paints, including explorations into: (A) cleaning system residues, (B) surfactant extraction from paint surfaces, (C) the identification of migrated surfactant, and (D) monitoring pigment changes at the paint/air interface of paint films ; It has been shown is that these X-ray spectroscopic techniques can be used for the analysis of almost purely organic materials in a way that complements mass spectroscopic techniques, FTIR and XRF. This investigation forms part of broader, currently ongoing, multi-technique investigation into the properties of artists’ acrylic paints and development of conservation treatments for works-of-art made with these materials.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2014 Willneff et al.; licensee Springer. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. |
Keywords: | Acrylic emulsion; ATR-FTIR; NEXAFS; XPS; Microemulsion; Residues; Pigment; Surfactant; Heritage Science; Conservation |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Design (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 03 Feb 2015 13:58 |
Last Modified: | 22 Oct 2019 14:39 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40494-014-0025-y |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | BioMed Central |
Identification Number: | 10.1186/s40494-014-0025-y |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:82531 |