As a museum with a primary focus on technology, we engage with material-related issues, and identify material-based solutions for the study and preservation of our cultural heritage. With its equipment, facilities and chemical-physical research methods, the Materials Science department performs targeted fundamental research, as well as applied research into the characterisation of materials and material properties, and in order to explain phenomena that cause damage.

We analyse materials at historic sites and monuments which have been damaged by environmental elements, also recording and quantifying the external impacts on materials and material surfaces. In addition, we examine material-specific reactions, alongside developing suitable detection methods. When analysing material found in archaeological excavations, our main focus is on the characterisation and the origin of the finds. The key areas of the Materials Science department therefore entail research, development and consulting activities.

The Materials Science department also focuses on material-based solutions for the preservation and study of our cultural heritage. We examine practically every inorganic material to establish their chemical, structural and physical composition, and choose suitable preparation processes and methods depending on the research issue and the qualities of the sample. This research department possesses a range of equipment particularly important for mining archaeology and archaeometallurgy projects.

We record environmental impacts and develop analytical procedures in order to evaluate the state of materials. The focus here is on methods for estimating the durability of materials in specific stress situations – especially when subject to environmental stresses such as constant freeze-thaw changes, substantial temperature fluctuations, salt contamination or excess moisture. In the case of material that has already been damaged, we test preserving agents, examining to what extent they have a stabilising effect and reduce further deterioration. We have already succeeded in delivering comprehensive object-based findings regarding coating systems for mineral and metallic materials ­– the most common materials found in the mining industry. There is also an increasingly urgent need to investigate other groups of materials, e.g. plastics and organic materials, which are present in various objects found in the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum’s collections.