Enrique Manuel Alonso Villar, PhD student, participated last Wednesday, May 10, in the TECHNART 2023 congress, held in Lisbon. He presented a poster entitled “Aging of paints used in urban art murals: an approach in the identification of pigments and their influence in the fading of the artworks”. This work is one of the results of a doctoral stay that Enrique carried out in the chemistry department of the University of Turin in 2021.
Color fading is one of the most common deterioration forms in contemporary street art murals. In order to characterize the pigments present in modern paints used in a real mural and their role in the color fading, two analytical techniques were applied: Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Pyrolysis with Gas Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry (Py-GC/MS). Both reference and after 1 year mural samples were analyzed. For comparison purposes, laboratory mock-ups of these paints applied to concrete supports were made and subjected to natural exposure for 1 year and ultraviolet radiation for 4620 hours. The results obtained confirm that the organic pigments of paints with greater color change are more susceptible to degradation.