Summary

Since the degradation processes of cultural heritage objects remain inevitable, the continuous development of advanced materials capable of counteracting the specific degradation processes is necessary. Thus, thorough scientific studies are needed to develop a customized formulation to protect, conserve and restore cultural heritage objects, and this represents a continuous challenge for scientists, aiming to replace the current approaches in restoration, which are rather under the specter of serendipity.

The InHeritage project thus aims to develop new multilayer composite materials with multiple functions (consolidation, self-cleaning and antimicrobial effect), applicable for the preservation of various inorganic substrates. The solutions developed in this project will represent not only an alignment with international concerns in the field, but also a very important, innovative technical solution at the national level, which will contribute to the sustainability of the project after the implementation period.

The activities planned to be carried out by the consortium during the third stage of project implementation were:

a. Act 3.1 – Evaluation of the results obtained for the optimized recipes. Internal validation of the proposed solution;

b. Act 3.2 – Validation by third parties of the proposed solution;

c. Act 3.3 – Elaboration of technical documentation for technology and products;

d. Act 3.4 – LCA for the proposed multilayer coatings and the evaluation of the toxicity of the coatings;

e. Act 3.5 – Dissemination of the results and the project.

The proposed activities were carried out in full, supporting the successful completion of the project. Thus, the results obtained for the optimized recipes were evaluated, both the internal validation of the proposed solutions and their validation by third parties were carried out, the technical-economic documentation for technologies and products were evaluated and developed, as well as the life cycle analysis for coatings, these being also evaluated from the point of view of toxicity. The brief presentation of the achieved objectives is the subject of this Scientific and Technical Report.

In this phase, two papers were submitted for publication in ISI journals (one published and one accepted for publication), four participations in international scientific events and eleven participations in international invention exhibitions were registered, and a patent application was submitted of invention A00070/2024. Also, two doctoral theses and one master’s thesis were supported through the project.

The obtained results were disseminated within the scientific community, the results of the dissemination being widely presented on the project website (Romanian version – https://icechim.ro/project/inheritage_ro/, English version – https:// icechim.ro/project/inheritage_en/).