![]() ![]() (2) Changing environmental conditions, such as temperature, may lead to various structural modifications that are important in the context of acrylics degradation. ![]() At low temperatures the paints face the danger of cracking while a temperature that is too high makes the surface of the paints sticky and more prone to collecting impurities. In addition, our model forms the foundation for developing mesoscopic and continuum models that will allow us to access longer time and length scales to further our understanding of the degradation of artwork.Īlthough acrylics are praised for many of their properties, one disadvantage of acrylics is their glass transition temperature close to room temperature. The cagelike structure of the polymers prevents the VOCs and water to diffuse freely below the glass transition temperature. With favorable solvation free energies, once absorbed, VOCs and water interact with the polymer side chains to form hydrogen bonds. The structure and properties of acrylic copolymers are slighlty modified by incorporation of a monomer with a longer side chain. Here we develop fully atomistic models to understand the structure of two types of acrylic copolymers and their interactions with VOCs and water. The glass transition of acrylic paints is below room temperature while low temperatures may cause cracking, at high temperatures the sticky surface of the paint becomes vulnerable to pollutants. In museums, stored objects are often exposed to temperature and relative humidity fluctuations as well as airborne pollutants such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs). While advanced technologies aim to control and prevent the degradation of cultural heritage objects in line with preventive conservation measures, there is much to be learned in terms of the physical processes that lead to the degradation of the synthetic polymers that form the basis of acrylic paints largely used in contemporary art. Most of the artwork and cultural heritage objects are stored in museums under conditions that are difficult to monitor. ![]()
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