Innovative packaging materials and tools for preventive conservation of Cultural Heritage

Preventive conservation (PC) collects all measures and actions aimed at avoiding and minimizing future deterioration or loss of Cultural Heritage (CH) materials. In the long term, Appropriate PC measures can save maintenance costs and promote the preservation of artworks. Particularly small and medium sized museums struggle to fulfil international recommendations for PC and to implement necessary technologies, e.g. for environmental control and monitoring, mainly because of lack of budget and/or expertise.

Degradation of movable tangible cultural heritage can be significantly increased by disadvantageous and unstable climate conditions, light, and pollution (specially from VOCs). Preventive conservation aims to minimize aging and degradation by optimizing display and storage solutions. It is worth noting that only a very small percentage of all museum objects is on display; the vast majority is in storage, especially in small and medium sized museums often in unsuitable climate conditions.

 
The combination of active novel packaging materials with sensors and wireless sensor technologies (WST) may provide smart, low-cost easy-to-deploy systems for storage and exhibition of artefacts.
The ultimate goal of applied research in this field is to dramatically reduce the costs of mechanical climate control and monitoring systems, by developing and customising smart and affordable novel materials, based on material science advancements and modelling.
Recent achievements within H2020 EU projects will be illustrated.