Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MICROTECH (Microgel technology for preservation of cultural heritage)
Reporting period: 2022-09-01 to 2024-02-29
The EU-funded MICROTECH project goes beyond previous efforts to propose a more cost-effective and ready-to-use formula based on functionalized gellan gum microgels in preservation of paper artecrafts. These microgels are recently proven to be more efficient and rapidly acting as compared to hydrogels made of gellan gum, also previously used in similar applications. The researchers’ ambition is to optimise the interactions of these smart agents with various surfaces from paper to wood by functionalizing gellan gum with molecules providing additional properties, aiming to contribute a great deal to cultural heritage preservation, amongst other uses. Private companies’ already expressed interest is expected to boost project success by testing microgel technology on real samples and conducting all necessary analyses for patent commercialisation in order to deliver a finished product.
The activities amounted mainly to the optimization of preparation protocols of gellan-based microgels and hydrogels and to their functionalization for additional purposes. In particular, methacrylated gellan gels have been produced and shown to be able to efficiently remove oily (hydrophobic) residues from paper. These results have been published in Cellulose. Tests on ligneous artefacts have been performed, to be released in future publications. Other variants of microgels for different purposes are currently being explored. Protocols for preparation and storage have been carefully assessed. In parallel with these applied studies, more fundamental research activity progressed to understand the gelation mechanism of gellan by atomistic simulations. The results of this study have been published in Science Advances.
New gellan gels have been prepared, functionalized and optimized. They have been successfully applied to paper and ligneous artefacts. Exploitation of some of the (yet unpublished) results is currently in progress.