Analysis of amorphous organic natural substances
Physical chemistry of cultural heritage materials. Part 2

Organic heritage materials are extremely diverse. They range from natural substances (colorants, oils, resins, waxes, skin glues, casein, egg-based binders, etc.) to synthetic polymers used since the 19th century [66] [67] .

Unlike inorganic materials, elemental analysis provides little information on these materials, which are essentially made up of four chemical elements (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen). What's more, since natural substances are made up of complex molecular mixtures, their analysis often involves an initial step using a chromatographic separative technique, followed by a structural analysis to trace the structure of each of the constituents present in the mixture. From a set of molecular constituents, it is then possible to...