| Summary: | Traditional Māori textiles are mostly composed of harakeke fibres (Phormium tenax, New Zealand flax) and coloured by various natural dyes. Fibres are dyed black (paru) with iron tannate compounds [1]. These textiles are liable to degradation which is believed to occur via acid catalysed hydrolysis and iron catalysed oxidation [1, 2]. To mitigate this degradation, these textiles are treated with different consolidants. There is however a poor understanding of the mode of action of consolidants at a molecular level.
In this study, paru dyed and non-dyed harakeke fibre samples treated with the common consolidants; sodium alginate, zinc alginate, Paraloid B-72™, TriFunori™, and MethocelA4C™ were assessed by bulk Raman and infrared (IR) spectroscopic techniques. These consolidated fibers were artificially aged using light ageing to evaluate for potential protective effects from the consolidants [3]. Also, non-dyed, consolidated fibres were studied by Raman microscopic analysis to detect the consolidant distribution within the sample. These data were analysed using; band integrals analysis, principal component analysis, and true component analysis, was applied to understand subtle variances in the samples of bulk and microscopic analysis (Fig. 1).
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