INMA seminar: Margarida Nunes, from the Institute of Heritage Sciences (INCIPIT-CSIC), Santiago de Compostela
INMA seminar: new tools for attenuating foxing in paper-based heritage
The Aragon Nanoscience and Materials Institute (INMA) invites the whole scientific community to the seminar “Multimodal chemical imaging and mechanistic insights into foxing attenuation in paper-based heritage by cellulose nanofibril hydrogels”, to be given by Dr Margarida Nunes from the Institute of Heritage Sciences (Incipit-CSIC).
Foxing, the brownish stains that appear on old books and documents, is one of the most visible forms of degradation affecting paper-based heritage. Its heterogeneous chemistry makes it difficult to design effective localised treatments and to understand the mechanisms by which they attenuate the stains. This talk will present a study evaluating the use of cellulose nanofibril (CNF) hydrogels to reduce foxing, combining several analytical techniques to assess both treatment performance and the interactions between the gel and the paper.
According to the results to be presented, the treatment visibly attenuates the stains, with increased lightness and a reduced yellow contribution, and with no detectable morphological damage, significant change in thickness or hydrogel residue on the paper. Hyperspectral imaging in the short-wave infrared range (SWIR-HSI) also makes it possible to monitor the progressive attenuation of the stains in a non-invasive, spatially resolved way, while the hydrogels act as repositories for the chemical species extracted from the paper, allowing them to be studied without taking additional samples from the historical object.
The seminar will thus offer a multimodal analytical framework for evaluating the performance of cleaning treatments and the chemical changes that occur during them. Attendance is open to everyone interested.
📅 Thursday, 29 October 2026
🕒 12:00
📍 Sala de Conferencias, Edificio I+D, Campus Río Ebro
