SECURE-COATS
Safe, eco-friendly and durable coatings to prevent deterioration of heritage stones
Principal Investigator: Simona Ortelli
Involved Personnel: Anna Luisa Costa, Chiara Artusi
Starting date: 28/09/2023
Duration: 24 months
Total Funding: 268 600,00 €
Call: PIANO NAZIONALE DI RIPRESA E RESILIENZA (PNRR) Missione 4 “Istruzione e Ricerca” – Componente C2 Investimento 1.1, “Fondo per il Programma Nazionale di Ricerca e Progetti di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale (PRIN)” PRIN 2022 – D.D. 104 del 02/02/2022
CNR-ISSMC Role: Partner
Project Coordinator: Enrico Sassoni (Università degli Studi di Bologna), Simona Ortelli (co-PI)
Consortium: Università degli Studi di Bologna (Enrico Sassoni, Elena Bernardi, Elisa Boanini, Stefano Fedi), CNR-ISSMC
Official website: SECURE-COATS
The project aims at providing new solutions for the conservation of marble and limestone in cultural heritage, by creating composite coatings with:
– ANTI-FOULING ABILITY, to prevent biodeterioration caused by microorganisms;
– ANTI-STAIN ABILITY, to prevent staining by green malachite stripes that form when stone is coupled with bronze;
– SELF-DIAGNOSTIC ABILITY, to evaluate quickly and non-destructively whether a protective coating is still present after years of field exposure.
To reach the project goals, the coating should be:
– SAFE: Safe-by-design” approaches will be adopted for the coating development, with the aim of controlling their possible cytotoxicity.
– ECO-FRIENDLY: The new coatings developed within the project will have lower environmental impact than commercial alternatives, as will be specifically assessed by life cycle assessment (LCA).
– DURABLE: The durability of the new coatings will be experimentally tested through ageing tests, designed to reproduce in an accelerated but still reliable way the natural weathering processes.
To achieve these abilities, possibly combined in a single multifunctional treatment, several different strategies will be investigated. The project will take advantage of the interdisciplinary and complementary competences of two research units involved in the project.
Results achieved
The project was successful and produced all the expected outcomes, namely new coatings for heritage stones exhibiting anti-fouling, anti-stain and self-cleaning abilities, based on nanoparticles already formed or synthesized in situ of Ag and ZnO, with the addition of essential oils encapsulated in inorganic matrices. Within the project, the new coatings were characterized in terms of desired effectiveness, compatibility and durability through accelerated ageing. Moreover, their cytotoxicity was experimentally evaluated and their environmental sustainability specifically assessed through LCA.
The project’s success is demonstrated by the large attendance (100 participants, of which 60 in person) toat the final workshop organized to present the project results to the relevant stakeholders, namely academic researchers, professional restorers, private companies and functionaries in charge of heritage conservation. This will likely lead to the prosecution of the research on the new coatings beyond the end of the project, by field testing and validation on real monuments in the near future.
Publications
The results obtained led to the publication of the following articles in international scientific journals:
- Vignali L., Bernardi E., Sassoni E., Cappelletti M., Cofini E., Cespi D., Evaluating the greenness of MP-AES spectroscopy through AGREE metrics, Talanta 304 (2026) 129536, DOI: 10.1016/j.talanta.2026.129536
- Artusi C., Zanoni I., Ghezzi D., Graziani G., Serantoni M., Blosi M., Fedi S., Cappelletti M., Costa A.L., Sassoni E., Ortelli S., Eco-Friendly Formulations of Essential Oil-Based Silica Nanocarriers as Antibacterial Agents, Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology – Nanobiotechnology (accepted)
Articles in preparation
– Paper on synthesis and performance of anti-fouling coatings based on Ag⁺ and Zn²⁺ ions
– Paper on synthesis and performance of anti-fouling coatings based on ZnO nanoparticles
– Paper on synthesis and performance of anti-fouling coatings based on encapsulated essential oils
– Paper on synthesis and performance of anti-stain coatings based Zn²⁺ ions
– Paper on LCA of the various coatings
Contributions in conference proceedings
– Sassoni E., Artusi C., Bernardi E., Boanini E., Cappelletti M., Chiavari C., Cianciavicchia M., Cocchi L., Cofini E., Dal Pozzo A., Fedi S., Ghezzi D., Gabrielli A., Graziani G., Ortelli S., Zanoni I., Recent advances on the use of phosphate treatments to provide heritage stones with anti-fouling ability, Proceedings of the 15th International Congress on the Deterioration and Conservation of Stone (STONE 2025), Paris (France), September 8-12 2025, p. 841-846
