Non-destructive evaluation of cellulose paper degradation using water-soluble carbohydrates

Abstract To evaluate the deterioration of paper cultural heritage artifacts using non-destructive methods, aqueous extracts from Korean traditional paper, ‘ Hanji ’, and pure cellulose paper were used in this study. We quantified the water-soluble low-molecular-weight carbohydrates (cello-oligosaccharides) in paper extracts. The degree of polymerization (DP) of aged paper was also evaluated from the absolute molecular weight of the cellulose. The content of water-soluble low-molecular-weight carbohydrates depended on the cellulose degradation. Therefore, the cellulose hydrolysis rate could be predicted from the linear relationship between the cellulose hydrolysis rate and water-soluble carbohydrate contents. The DP calculated from the predicted cellulose hydrolysis rate showed little difference from the actual DP value. Therefore, among the many non-destructive analysis methods, this methodology can also be used as an indirect method to evaluate cellulose degradation by quantifying the carbohydrates dissolved in extracts from Hanji and pure cellulose paper.