Acrylic Paints: An Atomistic View of Polymer Structure and Effects of Environmental Pollutants

Acrylic polymers are a major component of acrylic paints used in many contemporary artwork and cultural heritage objects. Although acrylics are praised for many of their properties, one disadvantage of acrylics is their glass transition temperature close to room temperature. At low temperatures the paints face the danger of cracking while a temperature that is too high makes the surface of the paints sticky and more prone to collecting impurities. Most of these objects are stored in museums under conditions that are difficult to monitor. Damage in cultural heritage conservation emerges from the interplay of various complex processes occurring at the microscopic scale. Through a multi-scale computational methodology, we aim at a fundamental understanding of these processes in acrylic materials present in contemporary paintings. Here we develop fully atomistic models to understand the structure of two types of acrylic copolymers and their interactions with environmental pollutants. In addition, our model forms the foundation for developing mesoscopic and continuum models that will allow us to access longer time and length scales to further our understanding of the degradation of artwork.