Luo, Yujia; (2022) The influence of wheat starch on properties and durability of traditional Chinese paper. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

It is known that numerous studies have been conducted to understand properties of European papers, and to explore impact of additives on paper stability, while little attention has been paid to starch effect on Chinese paper. To narrow this knowledge gap, case studies were conducted using contemporary unsized Xuan paper and 19th–20th-century Tibetan manuscripts, as wheat starch is often used as glue in conservation mounting treatment for Xuan paper-based artifacts and in preparation of laminated Tibetan paper sheets. Firstly, a series of characterisation was conducted to explore material properties for the two types of papers, proper alkaline reserve, neutral pH and degree of polymerisation (DP) at ~2000, no appreciable amount of transition metals, all indicate good stability for both paper types. Also, glue content, i.e., starch and protein content, was successfully measured in paper materials for the first time. Durability of the representative papers (selection based on the above results) was then explored by carrying out thermal and light degradation experiments. The results indicate that degradation of the two types of papers proceed in the same way as western papers, principally guided by paper pH, temperature, and relative humidity of the environment. Subsequently, starting from keeping heritage collections intact, non-invasive near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy in conjunction with multivariate analysis, was used to gain insights into its applicability on quantitative and qualitive analyses for both starch-free and starch-treated papers. The results indicate that partial least squares (PLS) regression using NIR spectra is feasible to predict paper properties and that NIR spectroscopy coupled with principal component analysis (PCA) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) can be used to successfully distinguish starch-free and starch-treated paper materials. The obtained results are expected to give knowledge and reference support for achieving effective and scientific conservation management in a long run for heritage institutions.

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