Electrochemical monitoring of plastic artefacts degradation.

Plastic materials are being used in art: in Italy, for instance, two Art Museums are already presenting only plastic artefacts. As organic matter, plastic suffers degradation and chemical and biological attacks beyond obvious ageing process. Here, we propose an electrochemical approach aiming at the evaluation of the conditions of a plastic object, so giving the opportunity of protection and conservation strategies. The method is very cheap, easy to be handled and absolutely non-invasive, and is based on the monitoring of acidity emitted by a degrading plastic basing on corrosion potential of target metals acting as sensors.