Abstract
One of the main problems connected to the conservation of street art is the selective removal of overlying undesired graffiti, i.e., drawings and tags. Unfortunately, selective and controlled removal of graffiti and overpaintings from street art is almost unachievable using traditional methodologies. Recently, the use of nanofluids confined in highly retentive pHEMA/PVP semi-interpenetrated polymer networks was proposed. Here, we report on the selective removal of acrylic overpaintings from a layer of acrylic paint on mortar mockups in laboratory tests. The results of the cleaning tests were characterized by visual and photographic observation, optical microscopy, and FT-IR microreflectance investigation. It was shown that this methodology represents a major advancement with respect to the use of nonconfined neat solvents.
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Acknowledgements
Margherita Alterini is acknowledged for the assistance with laboratory tests on removal of overpaintings from modern paints laid on mortar samples. Yvonne Shashoua and Isabelle Brajer are kindly acknowledged for fruitful discussion about this topic and for providing us with useful information about this new conservative issue. CSGI is acknowledged for partly funding this work, which was otherwise supported by the European Union (CORDIS)-Project NANORESTART (H2020-NMP-21-2014/646063).
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No kinship exists between Michele Baglioni and Piero Baglioni.
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Giorgi, R., Baglioni, M. & Baglioni, P. Nanofluids and chemical highly retentive hydrogels for controlled and selective removal of overpaintings and undesired graffiti from street art. Anal Bioanal Chem 409, 3707–3712 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-017-0357-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-017-0357-z