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Pigment degradation

Chrome yellow's darker side

Nature Chemistry volume 5, page 897 (2013)Cite this article

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Angew.Chem.Int.Ed.http://doi.org/f2dzcp(2013)

Using scanning transmission electron microscopy and electron energy-loss spectroscopy with high spatial and energy resolution, He Tian from the University of Antwerp, Belgium, and co-workers have now studied the degradation of a century-old bright-yellow oil-paint sample at the nanoscale. The sample was characterized before and after an artificial ageing treatment — a 40-day UVA–visible light irradiation that converts it from bright yellow to deep brown. They observed that the original and aged samples comprised four types of particle, with a size distribution ranging from 20 to 300 nm, some of which had core–shell morphologies. The particles consist of phases of PbCrO4, PbSO4 (often observed together, suggesting a solid solution PbCr1−xSxO4) and Cr2O3 (either as small particles or forming the shell of larger particles). Electron energy-loss near-edge structure spectra showed that the PbSO4 phases remained unchanged on degradation, whereas a significant amount of PbCrO4 was converted into Cr2O3 — and this process was faster for sulfur-rich phases.

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  1. Anne Pichon
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Pichon, A. Chrome yellow's darker side. Nature Chem 5, 897 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1789

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