The smell of old books is the result of hundreds of volatile organic compounds (VOCs, for its acronym in English) released from paper to air. Besides unmistakable smell this can be very useful to know the state of conservation of old volumes, according to a study just published the journal Analytical Chemistry . "Smelling" the gases emitted by 72 ancient documents of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with a new technique called "degradome material" , a team of British scientists and Slovenia has managed to identify 15 volatile molecules that could be good markers to quantify with certainty the risk that degrade cellulose the lignin (the most abundant organic polymer in the plant world, that the odor of vanilla), wood fiber and other components of the books. This noninvasive technique could help libraries and museums to preserve a wide range of paper-based objects, some of which are rapidly deteriorating due to old age. Elena Sanz
24/03/2010
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