Nanofibrous Photothermal Materials from Natural Resources: A Green Approach for Artwork Restoration.

Cleaning unwanted paint layers represents a significant challenge in cultural heritage restoration, requiring high effectiveness, spatial precision, and nontoxic techniques. Cleaning vandalic acts or street art paints is particularly challenging because of insoluble varnishes, which are very resistant to traditional removal treatments. Here, for the first time, we employ the photothermal effect for cleaning an artwork, using electrospun nonwovens incorporated with melanin nanoparticles (NPs).

Microporous electrospun nonwovens combined with green solvents for the selective peel-off of thin coatings from painting surfaces.

Over the last few decades, significant research efforts have been devoted to developing new cleaning systems aimed at preserving cultural heritage. One of the main objectives is to selectively remove aged or undesirable coatings from painted surfaces while preventing the cleaning solvent from permeating and engaging with the pictorial layers. In this work, we propose the use of electrospun polyamide 6,6 nonwovens in conjunction with a green solvent (dimethyl carbonate).