Correlation of deacidification and long-term conservation of paper-based cultural relics with tunning morphology of nano-MgO in fluorocarbon solvents

Paper deacidification protection is a crucial topic that the world is concerned about today, and the key of successful deacidification largely depends on deacidification substance. Here, we systematically synthesized three distinct nano-MgO with spherical, flakey and flower-like morphologies and disclosed their deacidification performance on different ages of papers with in the realm of fluorocarbon solvent. Theoretically, the numerical calculations were performed to explore the adsorption and penetration process of MgO across the paper. The results indicate the dispersibility of nano-MgO in methyl perfluoroisobutyl ether is greatly affected. Flakey MgO has superior dispersibility and deacidification performance due to its high specific surface area and high Zeta potential value, and can still have good performance after dry heat aging, which is conducive to the long-term preservation of paper. In addition, numerical calculation further verified flakey MgO with high surface charge could easy adsorb on the negative-charged paper fiber and penetrate deeply inside the paper. Overall, this work innovatively discusses the deacidification protection properties of MgO with different morphologies on acidified papers, which will help to understand the adaptation relationship between deacidification agents and paper more comprehensively, and also provide a new inspiration for the field of paper protection.