By Tom Henderson
Small Times Senior Writer
CLEVELAND — What do an Andy Warhol painting and a deep space probe have in common?
They both depend on atomic oxygen to stay pristine.
Normally, atomic oxygen is so destructive it can strip the protective coating off a satellite in less than a year.
 |
| Andy Warhol’s “Bathtub” was bathed in a plasma of atomic oxygen in a large vacuum chamber, repairing the damage done by a kissing bandit. |
But researchers at the NASA Glenn Research Center have turned that power to destroy into the power to restore, using single atoms of oxygen to salvage works of art damaged by fire or vandals.
The restorative power of atomic oxygen is an offshoot of the same ion-propulsion technology that is powering Deep Space I, a U.S. probe launched in October 1998 that is scheduled to make a pass through the coma, or nucleus, of Comet Borrelly on Saturday.
The same single atom of oxygen that breaks down the surface of expensive satellites also eats away at carbon or lipstick, said Bruce Banks, chief of the electrophysics branch of the Power and On-Board Propulsion Division at Glenn. Banks and his assistant, Sharon Miller, found that the process oxidizes surface contaminants but leaves the paint beneath unscathed.
As a result, an Andy Warhol painting worth several hundred thousand dollars, “Bathtub,” is now back on display at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. Two paintings covered in thick soot from a fire have been perfectly restored at a Cleveland Heights church. And a Monet panel, owned by the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University but long hidden from the public because of fire damage, is being considered for an atomic-oxygen wash.
The same atomic-oxygen technology is at the heart of a collaboration between NASA Glenn and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. The technology stimulates cell growth and can even help grow bone in cases of severe fracture.
In 1997, Glenn did its first art restoration, saving two 19th century oil paintings damaged in an arson fire at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights in 1989. The Cleveland Museum of Art had tried without success to remove thick soot, then turned to Banks and Miller.
The paintings were bathed in a plasma of atomic oxygen in a large vacuum chamber. When they came out, not only were they restored, but the dinge of time had also been stripped off. Colors were brightened and details sharpened.
“It was amazing stuff. Really amazing stuff,” said Bob Weaver, St. Alban’s pastor. The paintings were of Mary Magdalene and Madonna and child. He said that he could see details in Mary Magdalene’s jewelry and the pattern of her cape that he couldn’t see before the fire.
“Bathtub,” an early (1961) and valuable Warhol, was kissed in September 1997 during a party thrown by a cosmetics company. The company passed out tubes of lipstick. Someone applied the stuff, then planted a big red smooch near the bottom of the tub.
Museum conservators Will Real and Ellen Baxter discovered the red blotch the next morning. They couldn’t use conventional techniques to remove the lipstick because Warhol hadn’t sealed the surface with a coat of varnish. They were afraid the lipstick would just absorb into the porous canvas and leave a big pink stain.
Soon after, Real and Baxter heard Banks and Miller speak at an annual meeting of the American Institute for Conservation about their success with the St. Alban’s pieces. They met with them and, on Aug. 6 and 7 of 1998, the painting was restored with portable equipment taken to Pittsburgh.
“We’re ecstatic,” Real told a writer for Discover Magazine. “This is a painting we thought would never again be shown to the public.”
SIMPLE CHEMISTRY
Oxygen is the most common element on earth. Most of it is in the form of O2, which is a pair of bonded atoms. The other form is O3, known as ozone, an industrial pollutant and byproduct of cars. In the upper atmosphere, ozone absorbs radiation and is beneficial; on earth, it is toxic to lungs and skin.
Atomic oxygen is a single atom of oxygen and on earth only exists in laboratories. In space, atomic oxygen floats around between 110 and 400 miles above earth, formed when the sun’s ultraviolet rays split O2 into two.
Atomic oxygen is so destructive because it has two unpaired electrons that are desperate to pair with other electrons. It is that pairing that degrades satellite coatings and lifts carbon from the surface of a painting.
The single atom of oxygen links with an atom of carbon and floats into space as carbon monoxide. Banks’ and Miller’s portable machinery focuses a beam of atomic oxygen — each one separated by 40 atoms of helium, an inert gas it can’t react to.
Banks hopes to get approval this fall to begin the biggest, and most famous, project to date, a Monet water lilies panel that was damaged in a fire at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1958. It has been stored at the conservation center at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University ever since.
A year ago, officials gave a tiny chip of the 9-foot-by-5-foot panel to see what could be done. Satisfied with how the chip was restored, conservators at the museum are negotiating with Glenn over whether to proceed.
“Conservators are, well, conservative,” said Banks. “They told us they’d know this fall. It will require us to enlarge our chamber, which we are going to do. We are under contract to have that done, whether or not they have us do the Monet.”
OTHER APPLICATIONS
Glenn’s technology management office has taken out two patents and hopes to license the technology to commercial art-restoration firms.
If people do license it, they may not realize they’re getting rocket science. The Deep Space I probe, using ion propulsion, is now about 170 million miles from Earth and on Saturday is scheduled to travel through the coma of Comet Borrelly.
But while they waited for ion rockets to be approved by NASA, Banks and his co-workers wondered what else the technology could be used for. They discovered that streams of ions could be used to clean surfaces or to etch patterns in a variety of materials.
Last October, Banks attended a MEMS conference at the Cleveland Clinic, sponsored by the Glennan Microsystems Initiative, a consortium that aims to commercialize small tech in Ohio.
Banks saw a demonstration on microtexturing the surface of silicon to stimulate cell growth and realized that he knew how to do that with polymers, which he knew would have medical benefits. “Silicon is not good to put in the body, because it’s brittle,” he said. “So we said we could do it on polymers, and they said, `Wow!’ ”
The result is collaboration between Glenn and researchers and physicians at the Cleveland Clinic, including bone surgeon George Muschler and bioMEMS engineers Shuvo Roy and Aaron Fleischman.
Banks said his department has also done ion patterning, or sputtering, on a contract basis for about 150 private-sector projects, with a wide variety of applications. “This has a huge amount of applications with industry,” he said, declining to name customers because of nondisclosure agreements.
“Bruce is very good at developing technology with commercial applications,” said Larry Viterna, chief of Glenn’s Commercial Technology Office. “He’s been a model for us getting technology into the private sector.”
null
CONTACT THE AUTHOR:
Tom Henderson at [email protected] or call 734-528-6292.