The GENERAL OBJECTIVE of this proposal is to advance in the knowledge of the conservation strategies (cleaning and protection) of urban murals complying with the standards defined by the ethical code of the practice of Conservation and Restoration of CH (ECCO Professional guidelines). This research line corresponds to the Clusters nº 2, 4 and 5 of the pillar II of Horizon Europe, The activities of the cluster nº 2 (Culture, creativity and Inclusive society) focus on responding to 3 major Challenges, which are interconnected and respond to the most urgent social, political, economic, and cultural concerns and expectations of European citizens. This proposal fits the Challenge 2, which encourages research and innovation activities aimed at protecting, conserving, restoring, and repairing the important cultural heritage in a broad sense and promoting its use in order to strengthen an awareness of European society. Attending to the cluster nº4 (Digital, Industry, Space and Defense), the proposal would be framed in the Industry area and, more specifically, in the development of clean process technologies with the reduction or elimination of industrial emissions. Finally, regarding cluster nº 5, (Climate, Energy and Mobility), this proposal is framed in the following strategic lines: 1) Climate, more specifically in the priority line aimed at the integration of itineraries towards climate neutrality, covering all sectors of the economy and 2) Energy, more specifically in the activity line Communities and Cities,
More specifically, three specific objectives (SO) are considered:
SO 1: to know the alteration forms occurred in the constituent materials of urban murals exposed to an accelerated aging test (temperature, humidity, sunlight radiation and CO₂, being the latter the main physical driver of climate change).
SO 2: to know the cleaning effectiveness of overpainting on urban mural paints using commercial cleaners and low-toxic solvent ternary mixtures. This SO allows reaching the first great MILESTONE of this project, which is to advance in the knowledge of the chemical cleaning using low toxic solvent ternary mixtures of vandalism paintings on urban mural. This MILESTONE constitutes a necessary and valuable knowledge to undertake future cleaning interventions, allowing conservation professionals to select cleaning methods environmentally friendly.
SO 3: to know the protection in terms of cleaning effectiveness due to antigraffiti products using a permanent and a sacrificial antigraffiti products and their durability after being exposed to the accelerated aging test.
SO 4: to know the protection against sunlight radiation of products recently commercialized to know their effectiveness to reduce fading. Durability will be evaluated using the accelerated aging test.
SO 5: to transfer the knowledge generated about cleaning and protection to a real urban mural.
SO 3, SO 4 and SO 5 allow reaching the second MILESTONE of this project, which is to advance in the knowledge of the protection on urban murals to allow establishment of conservation guidelines for a preventive conservation of this street art expression.
