Pretty in pink? New restoration treatments to mitigate salt crystallizations and pink discoloration in historic buildings and monitoring of their effectiveness through “omics” analysis

Climate change is one of the most serious threats our world is facing and predicted to amplify damage processes affecting global built cultural heritage. In this project, one factor directly associated to climate change, the increase of salt-crystallization cycles will be investigated. Salt weathering results from the combined action of salt transport and the in-pore crystallization under changing environmental conditions. The pressure force built up by the crystals on the pore surface is responsible for creating damage. Additionally, salt crystallizations mimic saline environments in buildings and offer an ecological niche for halophilic microorganisms. Besides most of them are containing carotenoids pigments that produce an additional aesthetic damage consisting of a rosy discoloration phenomenon. The aim of this study is to investigate to which extent the biodeterioration of stone and building materials is affected by salt crystallization cycles and how this factor affects microbial community successions, biological resilience and activity on stone materials.