Evaluation of Agarose Poultices Loaded with Different Cleaning Agents in the Presence of Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticle: Experimental Study on Archaeological Pottery Samples

Pottery is exposed to many damage factors, including effects of salts, soot, and fats as a result of the soil it is buried in. And because of storing the wax in pottery vessels, or using it to close the pottery vessel. Pottery vessels are also used to preserve food products, such as milk, oils, and other products that appear on the texture of ancient pottery. Therefore, pottery cleaning is one of the first steps in the preservation process, and is the most important and accurate conservation work. Due to the inaccuracy of traditional cleaning, the study aims to evaluate and compare the cleaning with nanomaterial's. Agarose poultices loaded with SDS or Vulpex cleaning agent were prepared in the presence of Nano titanium dioxide. Different analytical techniques, such as the transmission electron microscope (TEM), USB digital optical microscope, scanning electron microscope (SEM-EDX), and measurement of color change have been used to evaluate the cleaning materials and the cleaning process. The results of the microscopic investigation used in the evaluation process revealed that using TiO2 SDS NPS poultice and TiO2 Vulpex NPS poultice perfectly removed salt, soot, dust, and wax deposits from the pottery samples' surface. The results of elemental analysis by (SEM-EDX) showed the salts and soot percentage of the treated samples with TiO2 SDS NPS poultice and TiO2 Vulpex NPS poultice respectively. The measurement of color change revealed that the treated samples with TiO2 SDS NPS poultice gave unnoticeable alteration to the human eye.