Gellan gum as a sustainable alternative in textile conservation for gel cleaning of metal leaf printed textiles

Warak printed textiles is a traditional handicraft of India. It refers to the transfer of gold and/or silver leaf on fabric, adhered with a binding medium. Literary sources date back this craft to the Mughal Era with examples of furnishings, royal costumes and religious adornments present with museum collections globally. This alleviates the importance of conservation of these textiles. The binding medium of leaf printed textiles printed with gum acacia present the challenge of being water sensitive. The use of gels was explored for administering chelating agents for cleaning of silver leaf. Agarose gel is a commonly used gel in textile conservation. Experimentation with agarose gave promising results. Limitations of agarose gel included rigidity of gel, high cost, higher quantity required for optimum release mechanism and excess use of natural resources for the extraction of raw material. Gellan gum was explored as an alternative for administering chelating agents in gel form. High acyl and low acyl gellan gums provided advantages over agarose in the form of higher flexibility of gel formed, lower quantity of material used, and alternate source of raw material for extraction. Two most commonly used chelating agents in textile conservation were administered through gellan gum. The results were compared with those obtained from agarose gel administration. The results were qualitatively analysed through visual and microscopic evaluation and quantitatively analysed through spectrophotometry & contact time obtained. Gellan gum proved to be a successful alternative for agarose gel for administering non-ionic and ionic chelating agents. Agarose gel gave better results for administering cationic chelating agents.