Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Archaeology - Department of Conservation

Manuscripts and historical books represent a large part of the heritage of the nations in general and the heritage of Islamic nation in particular. Most of these manuscripts and historical books suffer from serious damage due to improper environmental storage conditions. Furthermore, there are many other factors affecting the permanence of manuscripts status such as inappropriate handling and poor display. The leather bookbinding of manuscripts and historical books is the first to face the deterioration factors in the way to the manuscripts, it is as a protective shield in front of those factors, In addition to that mentioned in the principles of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) to care and deal with library materials that books with leather covers more damaged than others, So it was necessary to treat and preservation the leather bookbinding. It should be noted that there are different methods and techniques used to clean the historical leather bookbindings such as: mechanical cleaning with brushes and scalpels, chemical cleaning with solutions and organic solvents, laser physical cleaning and others. In recent years, plasma technique has been successfully used for various purposes in the treatment and conservation of cultural heritage, which the most important are disinfection and cleaning. This plasma technology offers the possibility of enhancing or replacing currently used cleaning methods. Hence, the removal of stains from the historical bookbinding surfaces by cold plasma cleaning technique one of the important ways of application

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