Thermoanalytical Contribution to the Study on Paper Degradation. Characterisation of Oxidised Paper

In this paper we studied the effect of oxidation on paper stability by means of simultaneous differential thermal analysis and thermogravimetry. In our laboratory we oxidised Whatman n. 1 chromatography grade paper and performed thermal analyses both on non-oxidised and on 6, 21 and 96 h oxidised samples. The results showed characteristic thermal effects, particularly performing the experiments under oxygen flow: it was noticed that the temperature of the main cellulose degradation DTA peak gradually decreases with the paper oxidation degree. An application of this method was extended to the study of differently oxidised parts of a 1948's book. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.