Wood pulp paper

Ingredients

cellulose, wood pulp, lignin

Preparation Steps

Original Recipe Text

The sample is identified as wood pulp paper due to the high lignin content (p. 1804). Lignin is mainly responsible for degradation in modern papers (since the XIX century) due to its photo-oxidation properties (p. 1804). The study uses Equation 1 to estimate the 'effective age' by measuring the ratio of residual unbroken glycosidic bonds (p. 1806).

Evidence

"The fingerprint showing the presence of lignin in the paper composition is the vibrational band centred at 1,602 cm−1... The worst conservation status was recorded for the C2E sample, whose printing date claims for less than 100 years of ageing whilst the estimated effective date is more than 300 years for the whitest point."

Remarks

The C2E sample (Radioactivité, 1935) showed extreme degradation despite its relatively recent chronological date. The Raman-estimated age exceeded 300–400 years (p. 1809), which authors attribute to the presence of lignin and non-optimal conservation conditions including public handling and environmental factors (p. 1809).