Project Video

Objectives

Our main objective is to produce safe and effective solutions for the corrective and preventive conservation of Culture Heritage, based on environmentally friendly and low impact materials obtained from renewable natural sources or recycled waste.

One of the aim of the project is to make the research, novel materials and knowledge developed in GREENART accessible to the scientific and art conservation communities, industry and civil society through the involvement of citizens and users.

The objective of GREENART is the development of new sustainable solutions that adhere to the Green Deal requirements, through two main strategies:

The most advanced state-of-the-art systems for remedial conservation currently available to conservators will be re-elaborated by replacing existing polymers, solvents and surfactants with bio, natural or low-impact materials that are fully sustainable.

Completely new systems will be formulated using green materials, aiming to replace traditional consolidants, coatings, and packaging materials that are still established in the conservation practice regardless their environmental impact or safety risks. Vegetal proteins and polysaccharides, from renewable resources or cellulose/crustacean waste, will be used to prepare coatings and barriers to protect works of art from degradation, with by-design self-healing and reversibility characters, or consolidants to strengthen degraded/fragile artefacts (remedial conservation);

Ambition

Our ambition is to set these new classes of materials as standards in the restoration practice, and as models of cutting-edge technologies to be transferred in transversal fields such as food industry, detergency, cosmetics, and tissue engineering.

Methodology

The methodology to achieve objectives in GREENART follows a four-bullets scheme

Novel Materials

Protective coatings based on green materials from waste and plant proteins

Foams and packaging materials made by biodegradable polymers

Consolidants based on natural polymers from renewable sources

Gels and cleaning fluids made from natural waste

Green tech solutions for monitoring Cultural Heritage assets non-invasively

Impacts

The use of waste and the improved sustainability of the GREENART solutions are expected to provide a model for reducing environmental impacts in several sectors.

In the field of art conservation, GREENART will introduce solutions to end-users and stakeholders, with two major advancements:

  1. The new products will have high efficacy and durability, comparable or higher than the most advanced systems currently available on the market;
  2. The products will be safer for human health and environmental-friendly, according to the objectives of the Green Deal, introducing a reference paradigm for new protocols in the conservation practice.

An added value to the economic impact of GREENART is represented by the very core feature of the new systems, i.e. production from renewable sources and recycled waste, which will save the costs of production upscale and waste management.

GREENART produces solutions to make Cultural Heritage assets well preserved and accessible to the citizens, who will also be involved through the GREENART App; this will boost the positive impact of Cultural Heritage on society, favouring inclusion, and improving the perceived quality of life and urban settings, i.e. increasing society resilience.