Chemometrics and Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) Analyses for Identification of Wall Paintings Pigments

Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) can be successfully used for cultural heritage applications, such as pigment and stone identification or archaeological metal characterisation. In this work we focus on the study of wall painting pigments. Two methods of signal analysis are tested. The first one is based on spectral lines identification in order to detect characteristic chemical elements. In the second one, we apply chemometrics models (SIMCA and PLS-DA) to a pigment reference database. Results show the improvement of pigments identification obtained with the multivariate analyses approach. This work includes laboratory study and on site validation