The purpose of this project is to show how laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) and digital imaging processing can be used for indirect dating, authentication, and identification of oil paint pigments. Ten oil paint pigments from traditional and modern palettes were used for the analysis. Since synthetic paints (modern) were not available prior to the 19 century, the presence of a synthetic paint could allow for determination of whether the artwork was conserved in the past or it if was a forgery. LIBS and digital imaging processing were used to analyze the oil paint pigments in both pure form and binary mixture form. In LIBS, a laser pulse is focused on a surface and this focused pulse heats, ablates, atomizes, and ionizes the surface material. This causes the formation of a plasma and the light emitted by the plasma is collected, spectrally resolved, and detected. Elements contained in the sample can be identified by their distinctive spectral signatures. LIBS can provide both qualitative and quantitative results. It has many applications from space to defense including metal sorting, explosive and fissile material detection, lead in paint determination, heavy metal contamination in soil, identification of cultural heritage objects, etc. For this part of the study, the data was taken on pure and binary mixtures using ten shot accumulation analysis. The data was analyzed to determine what spectral emission lines could be used to uniquely determine one pigment from another. The pure and mixture pigments in single and multilayer samples were analyzed with image processing technology and algorithms. The digital images were used to create image histograms. Using the image histogram, the peak location was used to determine if differences among the pure and binary mixture pigments existed and whether unique peak locations in the histograms of the pure pigments or mixture pigments were seen.

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) and digital image processing for pigment analysis

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

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