Early synthetic textile dyes of the late 19th century from the “Primo Levi” Chemistry Museum (Rome): A multi-technique analytical investigation

In the present work a historical collection of early synthetic dyes belonging to an Italian museum was investigated through different analytical techniques: Fourier-transform Infrared (FTIR), UV-visible, Raman and surface-enhanced Raman (SERS) spectroscopies, CHN elemental analysis, electron-spray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The aim was to characterise five dyes of unknown composition, produced by one of the main dyeing industries of the 19th century, the Leopold Cassella & Co. An extensive bibliographic research was carried out in order to verify the reliability of the hypotheses formulated on the basis of the analytical data.