NANOmaterials for the RESToration of works of ART-Book of Abstracts for International Conference, 2018: Book of Abstracts

The EU Horizon 2020 project NANOmaterials for the RESToration of ART ( NANORESTART) project has focused on nanotechnologies and contemporary art. Why? Contemporary art is a major challenge for conservators since there is a significant lack of established conservation methodologies that can safely tackle the often extremely fast degradation of materials used by contemporary artists. There is a high risk that much of this heritage will be unknown to future generations. We can perhaps safely say that many current modern and contemporary artworks will probably not be accessible to visitors/users in a hundred years. The reasons for this include the extreme complexity and variability of the new and untested artist materials, materials often intended for different purposes, mixtures of incompatible materials, recycled materials, materials close to phase transitions that render a work of art metastable. Solving these issues requires advanced solutions at the cutting edge of modern chemistry and material science in an entirely new scientific framework that has been developed within NANORESTART.
The challenges of the NANORESTART project have been investigated by synthesising novel, functional nanomaterials and developing highly innovative restoration techniques for different types of artworks and in response to real conservation needs. The core of the project focusses on developing new tools to clean polyfunctional materials as well as nanocomposites to coat and protect them. Evaluation of the environmental impact of the new technologies and issues of sustainability, exploitations of the new technologies, and dissemination of knowledge have also been addressed. A multidisciplinary approach to the development of different materials the testing of such materials, and their industrial scalability. New materials and treatment methods based on nanotechnology have been developed and tested.
Five product families and fifteen key Product Solutions have been selected as cleaning systems for cultural heritage, surface consolidation of fibrous materials, coatings to protect metal and plastics surfaces, and sensing and diagnostic systems for degradation products.
This Book of Abstracts summarizes the fruits of this research, presented at the NANORESTART Conference to mark the conclusion of the project.