Now imagine you’re in charge of the silver collection at the metropolitan museum of art. Fortunately, for art conservators everywhere, scientists are hard to work on the process that may help keep silver shining and with a lot less elbow grease. 

 

Researchers at the University of Maryland college park, together with the [Waltras] Art Museum in Baltimore, are using nanotechnology to prevent that nasty sulfite tarnish from forming. The method called atomic-level deposition coats silver objects with a protective [orksite] film in layers just a single atom thick. Researchers discussed it at the recent 2012 AVS International Symposium, witch covers materials, interfaces and processing.

 

The technique is still being worked out and hasn’t yet been used on priceless works of art. But researchers say that it offers a number of advantages over current methods. For one thing, conventional polishing can actually remove underlying silver.