The Lille Natural History Museum has called on ENSCL to study the issue of the risks of preserving more than 400 chemicals from the museum’s collection, bequeathed more than 100 years ago.
The Chimie Lille Etudes Junior Enterprise is responsible for assessing the risks inherent in the conservation of these products, both for humans and the environment. The first phase of the project began in May 2021 and involved identifying and developing a database of products to determine their risks. This work was carried out by Elouan Heurard, 3rd year student at ENSCL (selected by Chimie Lille Etudes), assisted by Vincent Bosque Guardia, 2nd year student, for bibliographical and inventory work.
“The inventory of the collection allowed me to discover – with astonishment – certain products, which were most interesting given their history, their nature and even their container. The bibliographical and historical research that I carried out led me to discover the history of chemistry in the North,” says Vincent.
The second phase of the project, which kicked off recently, now consists in analysing certain products, with ENSCL taking charge of the most dangerous products, and possibly destroying some, then making the recommendations necessary for the proper conservation of this collection.
You can find more information on this project for the historical identification and recognition of the museum’s chemical collection on their website, in the section entitled “Objet du mois de Mars 2022”.
