Biocleaning of Cultural Heritage Surfaces
Francesca Cappitelli*
Dipartimento di Scienze per gli Alimenti, la Nutrizione e l’Ambiente, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy
Abstract
Microbial agents are among the major causes of deterioration of cultural heritage, strongly affecting our global cultural legacy, the stone, glass, wood and other sources used to fabricate millions of artworks and monuments around the world. However, it is not all about rotting and erosion! Microbial action has been harnessed to clean the surfaces of stone sculptures and buildings and frescoes. In particular, the ability and potential of different microorganisms to remove undesired sulphates, nitrates and organic matter have been demonstrated a number of times in the last decade.
Keywords: Biocleaning, frescoes, nitrates, organic matter, stone, sulphates.
Article Information
Article History:
Received Date: 15/6/2015
Revision Received Date: 25/6/2015
Acceptance Date: 31/7/2015
Electronic publication date: 08/04/2016
Collection year: 2016
© Francesca Cappitelli; Licensee Bentham Open.
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0) (
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
* Address correspondence to this author at the Dipartimento di Scienze per gli Alimenti, la Nutrizione e l’Ambiente, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy; Tel: +39 02 50319121; Fax: +39 02 50319238; Email: francesca.cappitelli@unimi.it
Open Peer Review Details |
Manuscript submitted on 15-6-2015 |
Original Manuscript |
Biocleaning of Cultural Heritage Surfaces |