NEW FIBER COMPOSITE MATERIALS FOR CULTURAL HERITAGE CONSERVATION

New fiber composite materials are presented in this work. They have been obtained by treating the surface of the fibers with a silane reactant used in the compounding stage to connect vegetables and mineral fibers to the other chemical components of the final composite materials. The silane reactant links on the surface of the fiber forming strong covalent bonds through the Si atoms. The other end moiety of the silane reactant carries an ammine group which is able to bind to epoxides in a copolymerization process. In such a way the fiber themselves becomes part of polymer networks which have much better mechanical properties with respect to the composite materials obtained by simply dispersing the fibres into polymer matrices. The observed physical and mechanical proprieties of these fiber composites candidates them to have future interesting applications in the field of conservation of cultural heritage.