TY - JOUR A1 - Schmid, Thomas A1 - Hidde, Julia A1 - Grünier, Sophie A1 - Jungnickel, Robert A1 - Dariz, P. A1 - Riedel, Jens A1 - Neuhaus, B. T1 - Ageing effects in mountig media of microscope slide samples from natural history collections: A case study with Canada balsam and Permount™ JF - Polymers N2 - Microscope slide collections represent extremely valuable depositories of research material in a natural history, forensic, veterinary, and medical context. Unfortunately, most mounting media of these slides deteriorate over time, with the reason for this not yet understood at all. In this study, Raman spectroscopy, ultraviolet–visible (UV–Vis) spectroscopy, and different types of light microscopy were used to investigate the ageing behaviour of naturally aged slides from museum collections and the experimentally aged media of Canada balsam and Permount™, representing a natural and a synthetic resin, respectively, with both being based on mixtures of various terpenes. Whereas Canada balsam clearly revealed chemical ageing processes, visible as increasing colouration, Permount™ showed physical deterioration recognisable by the increasing number of cracks, which even often impacted a mounted specimen. Noticeable changes to the chemical and physical properties of these mounting media take decades in the case of Canada balsam but just a few years in the case of Permount™. Our results question whether or not Canada balsam should really be regarded as a mounting medium that lasts for centuries, if its increasing degree of polymerisation can lead to a mount which is no longer restorable. KW - Deterioration KW - Microscope slides KW - Mounting media KW - Raman spectroscopy KW - UV–Vis spectroscopy PY - 2021 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-537632 DO - https://doi.org/10.3390/polym13132112 VL - 13 IS - 13 SP - 1 EP - 27 PB - MDPI CY - Basel AN - OPUS4-53763 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schmid, Thomas A1 - Jungnickel, Robert A1 - Dariz, P. T1 - Insights into the CaSO4–H2O System: A Raman-Spectroscopic Study JF - Minerals N2 - Even though being the subject of natural scientific research for many decades, the system CaSO4–H2O, consisting of the five crystalline phases gypsum, bassanite, and the anhydrites III, II, and I, has left many open questions for research. Raman spectroscopy was used because of its structural sensitivity and in situ measurement capability to obtain further insight by studying phase transitions in both ex situ and in situ experiments. The findings include significant contributions to the completeness and understanding of Raman spectroscopic data of the system. The dehydration path gypsum–bassanite–anhydrite III was shown to have strong parallels to a physical drying process, which depends on many parameters beyond the burning temperature. Raman band width determination was demonstrated to enable the quantitative discrimination of α-bassanite and β-bassanite as well as the postulated three sub-forms of anhydrite II (AII), which are all based on differences in crystallinity. In the latter case, the observed continuous structural variations over increasing burning temperatures were elucidated as a combination of decreasing surface areas and healing of crystal lattice defects. We propose an only two-fold sub-division of AII into reactive “disordered AII” and much less reactive “crystalline AII” with a transition temperature of 650°C ± 50 K. KW - Gypsum KW - Bassanite KW - Hemihydrate KW - Anhydrite KW - Raman spectroscopy PY - 2020 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-506701 DO - https://doi.org/10.3390/min10020115 SN - 2075-163X VL - 10 IS - 2 SP - 115, 35 PB - MDPI CY - Basel AN - OPUS4-50670 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -