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Aging processes and characterization methods for historical bookbinding leather

Content:
The original substance of a book binding provides information about the place of origin, storage and user history of the book, why the preservation of this material in its original form is of crucial importance for research in the field of bookbinding. In a current research project in cooperation with FILK Freiberg, a newly sustainable treatment for historical aged leather book covers will be developed. The aim is to introduce a long-term mild care agent to boost leather flexibility, which will remain in the structure and to stabilize the pH value at the optimal level with the buffer introduced in the form of deacidification agent. Preliminary research showed, that ageing processes of vegetable tanned calf leather, which has been mainly used for leather book bindings in the past centuries, haven’t been fully explored yet. Further, essential characterization methods like the determination of the acid content and methods for accelerated aging tests are not yet defined for leather.
For a systematic development and evaluation of the newly treatment, the project had to be focused on these topics first. Oxidation and acid-catalyzed hydrolysis have an enormous impact on the state of the leather. Both take place simultaneously and affect each other. It could be shown that the damage by acid hydrolysis is much more dominant than the damage by oxidation. Since oxidation plays only a minor role and can be slowed down only preventively by storage conditions, the project focused on the hydrolysis as the significant degradation mechanism. The aim of accelerated ageing was to reproduce as precisely as possible observed and identified degradation mechanisms in the natural aged leather. Therefore, a two-step aging process has been developed. The first stage is to introduce the acid into the material that is to be used to simulate the acid catalyzed hydrolytic degradation. The second step is to verify the effectiveness of the newly developed care products by comparing treated and untreated leathers at this stage of aging. The aging was evaluated by optical / haptic tests, shrinking temperature, mechanical properties, hot water solubility, pH value and differential number.
Regarding the leather characterization, the determination of the exact amount of acid introduced by the artificial aging is of great importance for the development of the aging method as well as for the pH
adjustment of the leather. For the method development, an acid-base titration was selected, which allows quantitative results of the acid content in the examined material. The developed method is easy to carry out and allows the measurements of different sample quantities (0,1 g - 1,0 g).
Take-Away:
- acid-catalyzed hydrolysis is the dominant degradation mechanism, oxidation plays a minor role
- acid-base tritration allows quantitative results of the acid content in the examined material
- development of an accelerated ageing method

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:34140
Date25 June 2019
CreatorsMarcula, Katarzyna, Schuhmann, Katharina, Anders, Manfred
ContributorsInternational Union of Leather Technologists and Chemists Societies
PublisherVerein für Gerberei-Chemie und -Technik e. V., Forschungsinstitut für Leder und Kunststoffbahnen (FILK) gGmbH
Source SetsHochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typeinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:conferenceObject, info:eu-repo/semantics/conferenceObject, doc-type:Text
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Relationurn:nbn:de:bsz:14-qucosa2-340872, qucosa:34087

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