A comparative study of reinforcement materials for waterlogged wood relics in laboratory

Most unearthed waterlogged wood relics need to be reinforced by dehydration and strengthening, otherwise the dry shrinkage and deformation would severely damage the value of these cultural relics. Till now, a variety of materials, such as trehalose, xylitol, lactitol, glyoxal, and polyethylene glycol, have been reported to be applied in the reinforcement of wood relics, however, the comparison of their effects on wood relics has not been reported yet. In this work, these materials were applied in the reinforcement of waterlogged wood. Firstly, chemically degraded medical tongue depressors and rice paper were prepared and used to simulate wood relics, while aged raw lacquer piece was used to simulate lacquerware relics. Then, samples were dehydrated and reinforced by different reinforcement materials including trehalose, xylitol, chito-oligosaccharide, lactitol, glyoxal, glycerol and polyethylene glycol. Finally, properties including deformation, strength and antimicrobial property were tested successively. From the results, we can conclude that xylitol was the best reinforcement material in the concentration range from 40% (w/v) to 60% (w/v). In some cases, lactitol and trehalose were also proved to be the good reinforcement materials. Besides, adding more than 0.5% (w/v) of chito-oligosaccharide could obviously improve resistance to Gloeophyllum terbium of reinforcement materials such as xylitol. This is the first report on the comparison of different reinforcement materials for the waterlogged wood relics. Our work will give insight into the selection of more effective reinforcement materials for waterlogged wood relics and screening better reinforcement formula with different concentrations. (C) 2018 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.