Properties And Consolidation Of Fragile Wool Fabrics

Historical wool fabrics reflect the wisdom of the ancients and are the heritages of human.They are not only the carrier of history culture, but also the great values in science, art. The woolculture relics largely were found in the northwest areas of china. They were fragile and brokenunder the ground for a long time. They were destroyed by fungi, high temperature, humidity andacid/alkali substance.This paper adopt homologous consolidation method and use amino acid as consolidatedmaterial, with ethylene glycidyl ether as crosslinking agent, to consolidated the fragile woolfabric.In different consolidation techniques and different consolidation environment, the effect ofamino acid/EGDE can be evaluated by the breaking stress and strain, ATR, thermogravimetric(tg), X-ray diffraction etc.The compositions of samples treated with alkali were similar to the culture relics.Eight amino acids, which are easier to react with EGDE, were chose to react to fragile woolfabrics with EGDE. Each process condition of the consolidation techniques was determined bythe orthogonal experiment. Consolidation effects were assessed by breaking stress and strain.The concentration of alanine and EGDE are4%and2.5%, respecitively,and the time of immersein alanine solution is45min for the technique of alanine/EGDE; the concentration of glycine andEGDE are1%and2.5%, respecitively, and the time of immerse in glycine solution is30min forthe technique of glycine/EGDE; the concentration of arginine are4%and2.5%, respectively, andthe time of immerse in arginine solution is45min for the technique of arginine/EGDE; theconcentration of lysine and EGDE are3%and1.5%, respectively, and the time of immerse inlysine solution is45min for the technique of lysine/EGDE; the concentration of serine are3%and2.5%, respectively, and the time of immerse in serine solution is60min for the technique ofserine/EGDE; the concentration of threonine are2%and2.5%, respectively, and the time ofimmerse in threonine solution is15min for the technique of threonine/EGDE; the concentrationof histidine and EGDE are3%and1.5%, respectively, and the time of immerse in histidinesolution is45min for the technique of histidine/EGDE; the concentration of cystine and EGDEare1.5%and2.5%, respecitively, and the time of immerse in cystine solution is15min for thetechnique of cystine/EGDE. The best consolidation result is used the alanine/EGDE and thebreaking stress is3.4times as strong as aging samples.The consolidation effect of spray method was worse than immerse method. The breakingstress of sample treated with spray method was increased to1.46times than ageing sample. Theconsolidation effect was hardly increased, when the ageing sample was consolidated in the acid/alkali environment.It can be found that EGDE has been crosslinked with wool fibers and amino acids by ATRinfrared analysis and thermogravimetric，the function of amino acid was to assistant with EGDE.The thermal property of consolidation sample was increased. XRD analysis showed that contentof crystalline region was decreased, but the β-pleated sheet increased significantly in theconsolidated samples.The above mentioned consolidation techniques had no bad impacts on other properties of theconsolidated wool fabrics, the consolidated samples treated with amino acid/EGDE wereincreased aging resistant performance. This consolidation technology has low costs, highefficiency, obvious consolidation effect and convenient, which can use to cultural relics rescuesite and provide a new way to protect cultural relics of fragile wool fabrics.