Abstract

Fossils are nonrenewable natural heritages formed by Mother Nature. After being excavated or exposed, fossils can be destroyed by weathering and water erosion. However, until now, there is very limited research work on fossil conservation. In this work, we focus on the protection of pterosaur fossils found in Hami, which are very sensitive to water. Four siloxane-based polymeric sols, including from tetraethyl orthosilicate and other three hybrid siloxane monomers, are prepared by controlled hydrolysis protocol. Their chemical and physical properties and performances as fossil protection materials are examined. Experimental data show that all sols have excellent permeabilities, decent reinforcement abilities, good resistance to light and heat aging. The organic moieties in the hybrids can also significantly increase the fossil’s hydrophobicity and reduce the cracking of the gels. The results indicate siloxane-based polymers can be very potential protection materials for fossils. And the hybrid polysiloxane sol containing epoxy function groups has overall the best performances.

Top left: severely degraded fossil due to water erosion, top right: structures of four sols Bottom: significantly improved fossil resistance to water after treated by silica sols, from left to right: treated by TEOS-TMPM-s, TEOS-TMPE-s, TEOS-BTME-s, TEOS-s and control sample.

中文翻译：

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Sol-Gel衍生的用于化石保护的杂化材料

摘要

化石是大自然母亲不可再生的自然遗产。在开挖或暴露后，化石可能会因风化和水蚀而被破坏。但是，到目前为止，关于化石保护的研究工作非常有限。在这项工作中，我们专注于保护对水非常敏感的哈密翼龙化石。四种硅氧烷基聚合物溶胶（包括原硅酸四乙酯和其他三种杂化硅氧烷单体）是通过控制水解方案制备的。研究了它们的化学和物理性质以及作为化石保护材料的性能。实验数据表明，所有溶胶都具有出色的渗透性，适度的增强能力，良好的耐光和热老化性能。杂种中的有机部分也可以显着增加化石的疏水性并减少凝胶的破裂。结果表明，基于硅氧烷的聚合物可以成为非常潜在的化石保护材料。含有环氧官能团的杂化聚硅氧烷溶胶总体上具有最佳性能。