Background: Many buildings in Egypt e.g. museums, mosques and churches, do not possess controlled
environments for minimizing the risks of damage of wooden artifacts due to the growth of fungi. Fungal
damage usually appears as change in wood color, appearance of stains, and sometimes deformation of wooden
surfaces. In this study we focused on the effect that some fungi exert on the properties of wooden artifacts and
evaluated the effectiveness of different concentrations of chitosan on their protection against damage by mold
fungi.
Results: Samples were collected from different monuments and environments, and fungi growing on them were
isolated and identified. The isolated
Penicillium chrysogenum
,
Aspergillus flavus
and
Aspergillus niger
strains were
used for the infestation of new pitch pine samples. The results revealed that the lightness of samples infected
with any of the tested fungi decreased with increasing incubation times. XRD analysis showed that the
crystallinity of incubated samples treated individually with the different concentrations of chitosan was lower
than the crystallinity of infected samples. The crystallinity index measured by the first and the second method
decreased after the first and second months but increased after the third and fourth months. This may due to
the reducing of amorphous part by enzymes or acids produced by fungi in wooden samples.
Conclusions: The growth of fungi on the treated wood samples decreased with increasing the concentration of
chitosan. Hence, it was demonstrated that chitosan prevented fungal growth, and its use could be
recommended for the protection of archeological wooden artifacts.
