Pigments used to colour historic books often contain hazardous substances, posing significant handling risks. Notably, arsenic combined with copper forms a bright green pigment known as emerald green, prevalent in 19th-century books. This vivid green was widely popular and used in various everyday items, including clothing, artificial flowers, wallpapers, paints, sweet wrappers, and even cake decorations.
Museums and libraries worldwide have inherited these items from the past but with more of an understanding of their dangers. However, visual identification of which books are safe or harmful is not possible.
Identifying Emerald Green
We look for the “fingerprint” of these pigments by shining specific colours of light on these books, and measure the amount of light reflected by each colour. Our research has shown that emerald green has a very distinct fingerprint that can be used to positively identify which books are poisonous.
Previous methods to measure this fingerprint are very specialized and costly. But our team has developed an inexpensive handheld tool , that will enable everyone to test their old green books for poisonous emerald green.
Find out more
Navigate this website to find out more about our activity and success so far.
Contact us
Should you be interested in finding out more, please contact the team with your enquiry at [email protected].