Analytical techniques used for the characterization and authentification of six ancient religious manuscripts (XVIII-XIX centuries).

This article presents the experimental results of a research on six manuscripts (three of the XVIII century and three of XIX century) belonging collection of old religious books to the Moldovan Metropolitan Church of Romania. Non-invasive techniques (optical microscopy [OM], scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive X-ray system, X-ray fluorescence analysis, shrinkage temperature, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy/attentuated total reflectance) provided information on the degree of degradation and identification of the leather bookbinding type. Moreover, visual assessment and OM revealed the extent of the surface degradation (wane, biological attack, change color, etc.

Valorization of titanium metal wastes as tanning agent used in leather industry.

The development of new tanning agents and new technologies in the leather sector is required to cope with the increasingly higher environmental pressure on the current tanning materials and processes such as tanning with chromium salts. In this paper, the use of titanium wastes (cuttings) resulting from the process of obtaining highly pure titanium (ingots), for the synthesis of new tanning agent and tanning bovine hides with new tanning agent, as alternative to tanning with chromium salts are investigated. For this purpose, Ti waste and Ti-based tanning agent were characterized for metal content by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and chemical analysis; the tanned leather (wet white leather) was characterized by Scanning Electron Microscope/Energy Dispersive Using X-ray (Analysis).