Silks are among the most precious ancient and historic artefacts worldwide. While washing removes the natural gum from the fibres during the fabrication of most silk textiles, for a small proportion of historic silks ...Silks are among the most precious ancient and historic artefacts worldwide. While washing removes the natural gum from the fibres during the fabrication of most silk textiles, for a small proportion of historic silks some or perhaps all of the sericin still remains. This paper investigated the effect of sericin coating on the aging of silk fibroin by means of ATR and tensile testing. The results show that sericin can provide some extent of protection from light and heat aging. However, in high humidity environments degummed and ungummed silk aged at the same rate because of leaching of sericin. Silk degraded at faster rate and more extensively in a moist environment. ATR could give very useful information about the aging of silk. The ATR-derived crystallinity index is good at tracing the aging factor and extent of silk deterioration. Alanine and tyrosine within fibroin, as estimated by ATR spectroscopy, are very sensitive to light, but not to heat and water. The ATR absorbance intensity ratio Iamide Ⅲ/ Iamide I is very useful for deterioration evaluation of archaeological silk objects. As a high humidity resulted in the leaching of silk, it is suggested for sericin-coated silk in collections, that not only wet cleaning is harmful, but also that storage or display in a high RH environment would be detrimental.展开更多
Silks represent some of the most precious ancient and historic textile artefacts in collections worldwide.Their optimum preservation demands an appreciation of their characteristics.One important concern,especially wi...Silks represent some of the most precious ancient and historic textile artefacts in collections worldwide.Their optimum preservation demands an appreciation of their characteristics.One important concern,especially with regard to ancient Chinese silks,is whether the fabrics have been degummed.Silks with remnant sericin gum coating the fibroin fibres would require different conservation protocol.In previous research on aged silks,the presence of sericin has been inferred from amino acid analysis of hydrolysates.In the study reported here,the potential of FTIR spectroscopy to provide a simpler and rapid method of detecting sericin on silk has been investigated.Both fibroin and sericin exhibit singular IR absorptions.Attenuated total reflectance spectroscopy was found to highlight the sericin coating more effectively than transmission and reflectance spectroscopy.Three particular peak intensity ratios were identified which might provide a quantitative estimate of the sericin content of new silk,to a sensitivity of 1%-2%.These were also shown to be valid indicators for the presence of sericin on artificially aged and archaeological silks,although quantitation was now not possible.Besides the peak intensity ratios,two signature peaks were also seen to be useful markers for silk fibroin,and their presence in a spectrum could be used to infer a degummed silk.展开更多
文摘Silks are among the most precious ancient and historic artefacts worldwide. While washing removes the natural gum from the fibres during the fabrication of most silk textiles, for a small proportion of historic silks some or perhaps all of the sericin still remains. This paper investigated the effect of sericin coating on the aging of silk fibroin by means of ATR and tensile testing. The results show that sericin can provide some extent of protection from light and heat aging. However, in high humidity environments degummed and ungummed silk aged at the same rate because of leaching of sericin. Silk degraded at faster rate and more extensively in a moist environment. ATR could give very useful information about the aging of silk. The ATR-derived crystallinity index is good at tracing the aging factor and extent of silk deterioration. Alanine and tyrosine within fibroin, as estimated by ATR spectroscopy, are very sensitive to light, but not to heat and water. The ATR absorbance intensity ratio Iamide Ⅲ/ Iamide I is very useful for deterioration evaluation of archaeological silk objects. As a high humidity resulted in the leaching of silk, it is suggested for sericin-coated silk in collections, that not only wet cleaning is harmful, but also that storage or display in a high RH environment would be detrimental.
文摘Silks represent some of the most precious ancient and historic textile artefacts in collections worldwide.Their optimum preservation demands an appreciation of their characteristics.One important concern,especially with regard to ancient Chinese silks,is whether the fabrics have been degummed.Silks with remnant sericin gum coating the fibroin fibres would require different conservation protocol.In previous research on aged silks,the presence of sericin has been inferred from amino acid analysis of hydrolysates.In the study reported here,the potential of FTIR spectroscopy to provide a simpler and rapid method of detecting sericin on silk has been investigated.Both fibroin and sericin exhibit singular IR absorptions.Attenuated total reflectance spectroscopy was found to highlight the sericin coating more effectively than transmission and reflectance spectroscopy.Three particular peak intensity ratios were identified which might provide a quantitative estimate of the sericin content of new silk,to a sensitivity of 1%-2%.These were also shown to be valid indicators for the presence of sericin on artificially aged and archaeological silks,although quantitation was now not possible.Besides the peak intensity ratios,two signature peaks were also seen to be useful markers for silk fibroin,and their presence in a spectrum could be used to infer a degummed silk.
