New Advances in Bioinspired Conservation Treatments for Cultural Heritage

Dear Colleagues,

The conservation of cultural heritage is a crucial challenge in today's societies due to its importance in terms of history, economics, and identity. In this field, biological agents are usually related to biodeterioration processes, understood as the production of undesirable changes in the properties of materials caused by their activity.

The living beings that affect heritage are very varied, most commonly microorganisms (algae, fungi and bacteria), insects and the anthropic factor, although many others may be involved, depending on the type of patrimonial assets studied. The casuistry of biodeterioration is also very broad, since there are cultural and artistic objects made of many kind of materials, and subjected to very diverse environmental and conservation conditions.

To control these processes, mechanical, physical and chemical methods (biocides) are currently used. However, these procedures usually present problems such as possible damage or incompatibility with the materials to be protected, as well as high cost in relation to their effectiveness and health risks for restorers.

In recent years, a paradigm shift has been taking place, consisting of the design of biotechnological strategies to perform conservation and restoration methods based on the use of natural compounds, biological agents and their metabolites. With this approach, new treatments with multiple applications which are potentially respectful of the heritage and the environment are being proposed, which constitute a very important trend for the future.

Therefore, we propose a Special Issue of the journal Heritage dedicated to the study of bioinspired conservation and restoration treatments for cultural goods from a broad range of perspectives. We intend to present a current overview of these methods and their development prospects. We therefore invite contributions on topics which may include, but are not restricted to, the following:

• Production of green biocides for cultural heritage.
• Conservation and restoration treatments based on biotechnological solutions in any type of materials.
• Nanomaterials applied to conservation and restoration methods.
• New artistic products of biological origin for application in artistic and conservation–restoration techniques: pigments, binders, consolidants or varnishes, among others.
• Nature-based solutions for the conservation of built heritage.
• Case studies on application in any cultural assets related to the these topics.

Dr. Julio Romero-Noguera
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Heritage is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• cultural heritage
• conservation
• restoration
• biotechnology
• control of biodeterioration
• biocides
• nanotechnology
• green chemistry
• new art materials
• pigments
• varnishes
• binders