Quality Matters for Historical Plastics: The Past-Making of Cellulose Nitrates for Future Preservation

Abstract

The material degradation of an historical artifact through chemical breakdown may place the object at the end of its useful heritage "life" in terms of aesthetic value and appearance. But all is not lost in the ephemeral world of historical synthetic plastics. The chemical analyses of degraded cellulose nitrate artifacts have unlocked material clues that not only help explain stability variations to guide collection care and preservation, but also bring insight into past manufacturing materials, methods and quality control during production. Translating the industrial materials of a degrading artifact by understanding its past to inform its future can revive it with a new cultural significance, and engages heritage scientists, historians and conservators in an innovative community of "complementary science" as defined by Hasok Chang (2004).

Investigating five totalizing counters manufactured by the Alphonse Darras company of the CNAM collections in Paris

“…The Srefl-IR signature reveals the presence of a cellulose nitrate-based material, which is consistent with the greenish-yellow fluorescence visible under long wave UV radiation [25]. Cellulose nitrate was introduced commercially in the 1860s in France and experienced an industrial decline in the 1960s [26].…”