Nanotechnologies for cultural heritage: Nanodiamond for conservation of papers and parchments

In this paper we report some tests regarding the feasibility of nanodiamond to act as a cleaning/consolidation agent of papers and parchments. We carried out a series of treatments aiming to develop innovative approaches for de-acidification, cleaning and consolidation. Dispersions of nanodiamond have been used as de-acidification agents of ancient papers showing the ability to sensibly reduce the acidity of the paper without using any alkaline base. Similar dispersions have been used for cleaning processes and nanodiamond demonstrated an outstanding capability to clean ancient papers and parchments avoiding the use of any solvent and surfactant. Moreover interesting results were obtained by using nanodiamond as consolidation agent. In particular, artificial aging by UV exposition was appreciably contrasted when samples were preliminarily submitted to a treatment by nanodiamond. This outcome was demonstrated in papers and parchments by Raman spectroscopy analyses that evidenced the property of nanodiamond to be an excellent UV-scavenger.