Polymeric coatings for protection of historic monuments: Opportunities and challenges

Abstract The conservation and protection of historic monuments or culturally significant structures have recently attracted much attention from material scientists. This review is given of the various aspects of the monuments protection such as the main reasons of damaging and spoiling of the historical monuments, the factor of contact angle as one of the essential parameters in the selection of polymeric coatings, and some of usual types of polymeric materials used for monument protection. There has been growing interest in developing novel materials for using in protective fields. Nowadays, the polymeric coatings, especially those with high hydrophobicity, are widely used to decrease or even stop further deterioration of historical monument. This review presents some of the most well‐known polymers used as protective materials such as acrylics, alkoxysilanes, fluorinated polymers, and hybrid organic–inorganic coatings. Furthermore, hybrid organic–inorganic coatings as a new class of materials are increasingly interesting materials because of their extraordinary properties deriving from the combination of the different building blocks and it is attempted to focus on this materials. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2009