Nagore Prieto-Taboada

• PhD in Analytical Chemistry
• PostDoc Position at University of the Basque Country

In recent times, the use of natural and harmless products for the environment and restorer is taking place in the field of Cultural Heritage restoration. In this sense, wheat, rice and corn starches as adhesives, have suitable characteristics without toxicity risks. A new starch in this field, is the Kudzu, an almost pure compound (99.5% starch) th...

Raman microscopy is a molecular technique that is able to detect compounds that are present in the samples at minor/trace levels thanks to the precise focusing on particles of interest. The detection will also depend on the Raman scattering of the measured compound. Moreover, due to the nondestructive character of the measurements, this technique i...

Punta Begoña Galleries, built in 1918 and located in the municipality of Getxo (Bizkaia, Spain) have a remarkable glazed ceramic decoration, whose current state of conservation presents an advanced level of deterioration. The study of the historical cultural property is framed within a multidisciplinary project, which aims to restore, recover and i...

The House of Gilded Cupids (Regio VI, Insula 16, 7, 38) was unquestionably one of the most important residences of Ancient Pompeii, where important archaeological artefacts such as mural paintings, mosaics, sculptures and lalariums were rediscovered. This work characterizes two wall mirrors that, together with those recovered from the House of Efeb...

Pigments are one of the most important archaeological records recovered from the burial of Pompeii. Therefore, their analysis and characterization is an important task from the historical, archaeological and chemical point of view. In this work, a unique collection of various coloured raw pigments conserved in their original bowls recovered from th...

The study of both original and decaying compounds is relevant in understanding the chemistry behind the deterioration processes, above all in open museum contexts where environmental stressors affect the artefacts. In this sense, a combination of non-invasive spectroscopy techniques (Raman spectroscopy, μ-X-ray fluorescence and X-ray diffraction) w...

This study aimed at using portable analytical techniques to characterize original and decayed materials from two murals paintings of Ariadne House (archaeological site of Pompeii, Italy) and define the degradation pathways threatening their conservation. The first wall, located in an outdoor environment, has been directly exposed to degradation pro...

The study of fragile artworks kept in museums requires mobile devices, short time of analysis and minimal disturbance to insure their good preservation. In situ reflectance spectroscopy and spectrofluorimetric studies are mostly developed for pigment characterization. A recently-designed μspectrofluorimeter (LED μSF) dedicated to in situ measuremen...

The walls and mural paintings of Pompeii exposed directly to the rainfalls are the most impacted in view of the observed decay. However, there are also wall paintings in protected rooms showing evidences of decaying. The aim of this research was to study the salts formed in such protected wall paintings only by non-invasive and in-situ Raman spectr...

Red and yellow bricks are the wall-building materials generally used in Roman masonries. The reasons for the different coloration are not always understood, causing loss of crucial information both for the conservation and for the archaeological knowledge of the cultural sites. In this work, a combination of in situ analyses, employing portable Ram...

This work is focused on the development of an innovative multi-analytical methodology to estimate the impact suffered by building materials in coastal environments. With the aim of improving the in situ spectroscopic assessment, which is often based on XRF and Raman spectrometers, diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform (DRIFT) spectroscopy...

This work was focused on the study of the biodegradation processes jeopardizing a mural painting conserved in the basement of Ariadne House (archaeological site of Pompeii, Italy). The fresco stood out for its peculiar state of preservation: the upper part, recovered in 1988, was just barely colonized by microorganisms. On the contrary, the lower p...

Most of the magnificent wall paintings from the ancient city of Pompeii are decorated with red and yellow colors coming from the used ochre pigments. The thermal impact of the pyroclastic flow coming from the eruption of Vesuvius volcano, in the year 79 AD, promoted the transformation of some yellow painted areas into red. In this work original red...

The development of non-invasive techniques for the characterization of pigments is crucial in order to preserve the integrity of the artwork. In this sense, the usefulness of hyperspectral imaging was demonstrated. It allows pigment characterization of the whole painting. However, it also sometimes requires the complementation of other point-by-poi...

The presence of salt efflorescence is one of the main causes of deterioration of building materials. Raman spectroscopy can be used not only to identify the different compounds present in such salts but also for the semiquantification of such salt deposits based on the use of external calibration curves. Normally, this method takes time for the pre...

A combined approach based on geophysical and geochemical analyses was carried out to determine the sources of rising damp in "Casa di Diana", a Roman building located in the Ostia Antica archaeological site (Rome, Italy). The studied building is characterized by high humidity values (closed to saturation, >. 90% RH) with significant efflorescence a...

Nowadays, a broad range of analytical techniques are available and applied in the preservation of Cultural Heritage. However, to characterise the historical materials and to obtain quantitative and qualitative information of their composition and structure, it is necessary to choose the appropriate analytical instruments. In fact, for each study, d...

Raman spectroscopy differentiation of carotenoids has traditionally been based on the ν 1 position (C = C stretching vibrations in the polyene chain) in the 1500–1600 cm−1 range, using a 785 nm excitation laser. However, when the number of conjugated double bonds is similar, as in the cases of zeaxanthin and β-carotene, this distinction is still am...

This work addresses the evaluation of an innovative mutianalytical method to assess the conservation state of a fifteenth century palace house. With the goal of reducing the handicaps of field analysis, the in situ spectroscopic assessment, often based on the use of X-ray fluorescence and Raman spectrometers, was complemented by the use of diffuse...

The attack of acid infiltration water over a historical building was thoroughly studied by a combination of ion chromatography, chemometric and thermodynamic chemical modelling. The treatment of the quantitative data pointed out to the formation and damage mechanisms of degradation compounds (salts of nitrates, sulphates and chlorides). Apart from...

The CaSO4-H2O system compounds have diverse roles as industrial chemicals and for that reason, a rapid and reliable form to characterize them is important. However, in despite of the large bibliography around this system there still remain too many unknown points because of its complexity. Focusing in the XRD literature, the contradictions found in...

Although it is known that the CaSO4/H2O system is formed by at least five different phases, this fact is not correctly documented in Raman spectroscopy studies. The main problem detected in the literature was the incorrect definition of the anhydrite, which produced the assignation of different spectra for a single compound. In this sense, two diff...

The relevance of a risk assessment of the built heritage was clearly justified due to the fact that it acts as a pollutant repository and hazardous pollutants have the capacity to penetrate into materials. However, the limitation of the sampling processes due to the high value of the built heritage makes a correct evaluation difficult. For that rea...

Weathering steel, in spite of its resistance against the atmospheric corrosion can be damaged due to the affection of environmental stressors. In fact, the presence of soluble salts formed after greenhouse acid gases impact, can accelerate the corrosion process. In this work three weathering steel sculptures exposed to urban atmosphere were studied...

The built Heritage constantly suffers different deterioration processes caused by the action of external agents, being one of the main consequences of the formation of soluble salts. These salts appear as efflorescences or subefflorescences that by hydration and dehydration cycles and/or dissolution processes producing crystallization of salts with...

In the present work the need to use cross-section analysis as a routine procedure in order to characterise physiochemical damage on building materials was evaluated using a combination of spectroscopic imaging techniques based on Raman spectroscopy, XRF and SEM-EDX. Firstly, samples for cross-section analysis required special preparation in order t...

In the present work the pollutant content of diverse building materials was evaluated by the combination of spectrometric and chromatographic techniques. A first non-destructive analysis carried out by μ-XRF and Raman spectroscopy revealed a high impact of pollutants, which reached depths higher than 6mm. The quantitative analyses pointed out that...

Raman spectroscopy is becoming a popular technique to perform molecular analysison building materials in a non destructive way, which permits the preservation ofsamples. Nowadays, the technical development of Raman achieved from high sensitivemicroscopic instruments till handheld spectrometers. This fact sets Raman spectroscopyas the technique of c...

The Italian recommendation NORMAL 13/83, later replaced by the UNI 11087/2003 norm, were used as standard for soluble salts extraction from construction materials. These standards are based on long-time stirring (72 and 2h, respectively) of the sample in deionized water. In this work two ultrasound based methods were optimized in order to reduce th...

A multianalytical characterisation of black crusted modern construction materials from buildings located in the Bilbao Metropolitan area (North Spain) was carried out. According to the mineral composition determined by Raman spectroscopy, calcite and hematite were the major compounds found while aragonite, limonite, rutile, quartz and some aluminos...