Supported projects

Prepared from animal skins, parchments are essentially composed of collagen fibers and are highly sensitive to various degradation factors, mainly water (hydrolysis) and heat (oxidation). A critical challenge in defining suitable conservation treatments is to non‐invasively determine the conservation state of collagen and thus prevent the irreversible degradation of parchment, called gelatinization. The aim of this project is to measure and characterize the physico‐chemical and morphological changes of collagen under varying temperature and humidity conditions and to understand theirs origins. Our approach is based on non‐linear optical microscopy, a non‐invasive technique at the micrometer scale for characterizing the conservation state of fibrillar collagen. In parallel, multi‐scale infrared analysis techniques is used to monitor alterations from a chemical perspective. The main challenge of this project is to establish a connection between the different scales probed (from nanometer to micrometer) and the various physico‐chemical signals collected. The new insights gained into collagen degradation within parchments will ultimately enable a more precise interpretation of observations made using conventional techniques employed in conservation‐restoration, such as fiber examination under a binocular microscope or on a heating stage (MHT, Micro Hot Table).