The decay of artifacts and art objects can be a silent time bomb ready to go off.  The materials that comprise an object may be slowly degrading over time and the effects are invisible to the viewer of the object until severe damage has occurred.  However, the material may be off-gassing small molecules that are able to act as an early warning sign of this possible catastrophic decay.  Also, storage materials have the potential of off-gassing fumes that can be damaging to metal objects.  Museums spend an exorbitant amount of time on testing storage materials to prevent or minimize off-gassing of storage materials.  Both cases of artifact decay have the general theme of having materials that off-gas as they decay.  We are developing gas-sensors that have chemical specificity to detect the gas that is coming from these materials.  These sensors can be used as a non-invasive and quantitative test of monitoring gas emission and better alert the conservators and curators of potential damage.