Next generation analytical tools for heritage science

NextGenHS focuses on the development of new analytical methods and approaches to the understanding of historic biomaterials, for the purpose of their better interpretation, management and conservation. This requires a broad interdisciplinary collaboration of analytical and material scientists, as scientific interpretation of results cannot be achieved without a deep understanding of biomaterial structure and decay processes. As an analytical problem, heritage biomaterials represent complexity on diverse scales: compositional complexity, structural complexity and degradation in unknown environmental conditions. This extreme complexity can be a source of information enabling the understanding of heritage objects (e.g. compositional differences in teeth growth rings that can indicate changes in diet), but it can also be the cause of degradation (e.g. due to mechanical stresses within a material leading to internal cracking). Additionally, the ability to characterise the microenvironments surrounding objects with a sufficient temporal resolution could inform both conservation and identification of biomaterials (e.g. through detection of volatile organic compounds). The ability to analytically visualise material heterogeneity thus directly informs the interpretation as well as conservation of heritage objects in museum, gallery, library and archival collections. This proposal addresses some of the most often encountered and as yet unresolved analytical challenges in heritage science. The overarching objective of the project is to develop, evaluate and demonstrate the applicability of four analytical tools/approaches as yet not included in the provision of the ESFRI European Research Infrastructure for Heritage science, E-RIHS, supported by its gap analysis documents, and supporting target communities of users in the domains of heritage conservation, archaeology and building conservation. The proposal has the following specific objectives: (i) To develop and evaluate the analytical performance of cutting edge XPS and ToF-SIMS methods to analyse the surface chemical composition of heritage biomaterials. (ii) To calibrate quantitative HSI chemical imaging methods to visualise the distribution of the surface chemical composition of heritage objects, based on SWIR and VNIR reflectance spectra. (iii) To develop and assess the application potential for 4D microCT/DVC to measure displacement and strain fields of loaded samples of heritage biomaterials, in time. (iv) To calibrate and assess the analytical performance of two types of sensor arrays, based on metal oxide and colorimetric sensors, for monitoring of indoor pollutants in heritage environments. (v) To demonstrate the applicability of the above analytical tools to real heritage science problems, and thus demonstrate the value of the new facilities to E-RIHS. The project is a collaboration of research groups from different scientific fields: in the field of analytical chemistry (primary field), supported by UL FKKT, UM and KI, and biotechnical sciences (secondary field), supported by UL BF, ZAG, and ZVKDS. The impact of this research is in the humanities, represented by UL FF and NUL. To a great extent, cutting-edge development of analytical methodologies and techniques in the field of heritage science is enabled by the European Research Infrastructure for Heritage Science (E-RIHS). The proposal coordinator is Professor Dr Irena Kralj-Cigić, who, with her long-term involvement in the development of E-RIHS, is ideally suitable to not just lead on the research, but also implement the developments and ensure that the research investment leads to a lasting international impact through E-RIHS.