Repeatedly, museum institutions are contaminated with hazardous substances due to damaging old restorations. The have a negative impact on the preservation of contaminated collections and the daily work of those affected. Previous analytical methods of environmental monitoring are too expensive and burdensome to conduct comprehensive studies. In addition, there is a lack of viable options for condition monitoring.
Therefore, the aim of the project is to develop, test and apply innovative practical methods for easy identification and visualization of polluted collections using the example of museum model institutions. Within the project, innovative and cost-effective (multi)-methods will be developed and validated to derive general assessment values for hazardous substances in museums.
A user-friendly MUSA test kit for self-sampling and the creation of an informative software platform are further components of the research project. The innovation of the MUSA system lies in the combined development of practical (multi)-methods and a web-based software platform that enables presentation and interpretation of the results for non-specialists. The traffic-light-based benchmarking enables institutional comparisons, time series and trend analyses, and integrates an archiving and search function. The project makes a decisive contribution to the safe preservation of objects and to the reduction of the exposure of people and the environment to hazardous substances.
