Museum experts have created a super sensitive artificial "nose" that helps sniff out pollutants and preserve cherished works of art, including original drawings and sketches from Walt Disney Animation Studio's more than 90-year history.
Disney's famous illustrations - from "Steamboat Willie," released in 1928, through "Frozen," which debuted in 2013 - traveled internationally for the first time this summer. Conservators monitored the priceless artwork using the new state-of-the-art senor, designed specifically to detect pollutants before they cause irreversible damage.
Pollutants can spur oxidative damage and acid degradation that, in prints or canvases, causes permanent color changes or decomposition.
"Many pollutants that are problematic for human beings are also problematic for works of art," explained Kenneth Suslick, a self-proclaimed "museum hound" and professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "The ability to monitor how much pollution a drawing or painting is exposed to is an important element of art preservation."
However, works of art are vulnerable to damage at far lower pollutant levels than what's considered acceptable for humans.
"The high sensitivity of artists' materials makes a lot of sense for two reasons," Suslick added. "Human beings are capable of healing, which, of course, works of art cannot do. Moreover, human beings have finite lifetimes, whereas ideally works of art should last for future generations."
Currently, museums rely on sealed display cases to conserve vulnerable artwork, but even they have their limits. For instance, some materials artists use "exhale" reactive compounds that accumulate in the cases and damage the art. Sorbents are placed inside the display cases to scrub potentially damaging compounds from the enclosed environment, but it is difficult to known when these materials need to be replaced.
Previously, Suslick created an optoelectronic nose, which is an array of dyes that change color when exposed to various compounds; however, it is not able to sniff out the low concentrations of pollutants that damage works of art.
So Suslick partnered with scientists from the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) in Los Angeles to redesign the nose and make it several hundred times more sensitive. At the time, GCI was already involved in a research project with the Walt Disney Animation Research Library, examining the impact storage environments have on animation cells - transparent sheets that artists drew or painted on before computer animation was developed. The goal, researchers say, was to develop sensors that would monitor levels of acetic acid and other compounds that emanate from these sheets, which in turn would help extend the life Disney's important collection.
When the exhibit, "Drawn from Life: The Art of Disney Animation Studios," took off this summer, researchers placed the sensors in discrete places to monitor the pollution levels both inside and outside of the sealed and framed artworks. If the sensors indicated pollution levels inside the sealed frames were rising, conservators would know to replace the sorbents. An initial analysis of the keener "noses" showed the sorbents were effective at preserving the works of art.
In the future, Suslick hopes to expand the sensors' applications in the field of cultural heritage. Researchers recently presented their findings at the 251st National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.
