A NEW TECHNOLOGY WITH POTENTIAL INTEREST FOR CONSERVATION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE: VAPORIZED HYDROGEN PEROXIDE STERILIZATION (VHPS)

The VHPS technology can be considered as a safer and more environmentally friendly method for decontamination of works of art, and environments, colonized by microorganisms (fungi, bacteria). The application of this technology allowed that: \u2022 the procedure has to be performed on site; \u2022 the procedure has to be repeated in several runs; \u2022 the procedure has to perform microbial biocide and sporocide; \u2022 the human toxicity has to be controllable (safe working environment); \u2022 the gaseous mixture has to avoid creating a cumulative chemical toxic burden; \u2022 the validation and reproducibility of the decontamination process. In the present work we put together the information coming from the application of sterilization procedure from different field such as medicine, pharmacology, nanotechnology, in order to develop new applicative protocols, particularly for cultural heritage field