Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Synthesis And Fading Of Eighteenth-Century Prussian Blue Pigments: A Combined Study By Spectroscopic And Diffractive Techniques Using Laboratory And Synchrotron Radiation Sources, Louise Samain, Fernande Grandjean, Gary J. Long, Pauline Martinetto, Pierre Bordet, Jana Sanyova, David Strivay

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

Prussian blue, a hydrated iron(III) hexacyanoferrate(II) complex, is a synthetic pigment discovered in Berlin in 1704. Because of both its highly intense color and its low cost, Prussian blue was widely used as a pigment in paintings until the 1970s. The early preparative methods were rapidly recognized as a contributory factor in the fading of the pigment, a fading already known by the mid-eighteenth century. Herein two typical eighteenth-century empirical recipes have been reproduced and the resulting pigment analyzed to better understand the reasons for this fading. X-ray absorption and Mössbauer spectroscopy indicated that the early syntheses lead to Prussian …