Moxy EU Horizon

Tangible cultural heritage assets constitute an invaluable and irreplaceable resource of humanity, which are increasingly threatened by contaminants from pollution, vandalism, and fire. Currently available cleaning methods require solvents which can be detrimental to art materials, and harmful to health and the environment. Cleaning with oxygen atoms could provide a breakthrough solution. Experts from plasma physics, heritage science, and conservation from 10 European research organizations, museums, and SMEs, have joined forces in a new Horizon Europe MOXY project (Green Atmospheric Plasma Generated Monoatomic Oxygen Technology for Restoration of the Works of Art), coordinated by the Research Unit for Plasma Technologies RUPT at Ghent University. The project aims to develop a new green cleaning technology, based on monoatomic oxygen to remove contaminants or unwanted organic compounds from past restoration treatments in a non-contact way, without health or environmental concerns. The futuristic concept stems from the work of Bruce Banks and Sharon Miller at NASA and aerospace research, and Horizon Europe awarded the MOXY project with over 4 million Eur grant in the call Green technologies for Cultural Heritage: HORIZON-CL2-2021-HERITAGE-01-01 (grant agreement ID: 101061336) to develop atomic oxygen technology for restoration of tangible cultural heritage in greener, more effective and sustainable way. The MOXY project officially starts with a kick-off meeting in Ghent on Nov 7, 2022, and the project consortium includes Ghent University (Belgium), University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands), University of Antwerp (Belgium), National Gallery of Denmark (Denmark), Technical University Eindhoven (The Netherlands), University of Pisa Italy), Kompiuterinis Procesu Valdymas (Lithuania), Moderna Museet (Sweden), ICOMOS Lietuva (Lithuania), WeLoop (France).