SILVER NANOPARTICLES APPLICATION FOR TEXTILE CONSERVATION

Abstract

Silver is a metal well known for its antimicrobial properties and it is widely used in a broad range of applications (e.g., dyes, cosmetics, medicine etc.). Therefore, the attempt to use silver for textile cultural heritage conservation does not come as a surprise. However, the real challenge is to achieve a perfect fixation of these particles on textiles without altering the aesthetic aspect of the materials. In this context, the use of silver as nanoparticles is essential to ensure that none of the visual aspects is affected, such as color, texture, brightness etc. For the present work, different types of textile fibers were subjected to an accelerated aging process, using UV light, temperature, and humidity. The fibers selected for this study are natural, artificial and combination. In parallel, the textile fibers were treated with different dispersions containing silver nanoparticles and subjected to the same process. To make a comparison between the levels of degradation of the treated and non-treated fibers, they were characterized using different techniques. Electronic microscopy was used to observe the visual effect of the degradation. Infrared spectroscopy was performed to evaluate the changes in the functional groups of the polymeric structures and colorimetry measurements were carried out to quantify the color change of the fibers.

Keywords

• silver nanoparticles
• textiles
• heritage
• conservation.