Chemical changes exhibited by latent fingerprints after exposure to vacuum conditions

Bright, N.; Willson, Terry R.; Driscoll, Daniel J.; Reddy, Subrayal M.; Webb, R.P.; Bleay, Stephen M.; Ward, Neil; Kirkby, K.J.; Bailey, Melanie J.

doi:10.1016/j.forsciint.2013.03.047

Cited by 40 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…This may be useful when a fingerprint is smudged or details of the donor are not contained within the fingerprint database. Many techniques have been proposed for these applications, including spectroscopic techniques [30], which lack the selectivity of mass spectrometry methods; chromatography based approaches [22,29] which require considerable sample preparation and consume at least an entire fingerprint; and vacuum based methods [20][21][22][23][24][25], which have lower sample throughput and have been shown to degrade fingerprint chemistry [31].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of urine, oral fluid and fingerprints by liquid extraction surface analysis coupled to high resolution MS and MS/MS – opportunities for forensic and biomedical science

et al. 2016

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Liquid Extraction Surface Analysis (LESA) is a new, high throughput tool for ambient mass spectrometry. A solvent droplet is deposited from a pipette tip onto a surface and maintains contact with both the surface and the pipette tip for a few seconds before being re-aspirated. The technique is particularly suited to the analysis of trace materials on surfaces due to its high sensitivity and low volume of sample removal. In this work, we assess the suitability of LESA for obtaining detailed chemical profiles of fingerprints, oral fluid and urine, which may be used in future for rapid medical diagnostics or metabolomics studies. We further show how LESA can be used to detect illicit drugs and their metabolites in urine, oral fluid and fingerprints. This makes LESA a potentially useful tool in the growing field of fingerprint chemical analysis, which is relevant not only to forensics but also to medical diagnostics. Finally, we show how LESA can be used to detect the explosive material RDX in contaminated artificial fingermarks.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of urine, oral fluid and fingerprints by liquid extraction surface analysis coupled to high resolution MS and MS/MS – opportunities for forensic and biomedical science

et al. 2016

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“…There was no obvious modification except for some very minor shrinking of small droplets of material. The detrimental pressure identified by Bright et al was around 2 Â 10 À5 Torr (2.6 Â 10 À3 Pa), whereas 80 Pa is well above this value [28].…”

Section: Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy (Esem)mentioning

confidence: 81%

“…Secondly, samples have to be placed in a high-vacuum chamber to produce a good-quality image. Both coating and high vacuum will have detrimental effects on the fingermark residue; inevitable and uncontrollable modifications such as water and lipid evaporation will occur [28]. Coating procedures, which also require vacuum, will obscure the samples and thus prevent any further light microscopy observation.…”

Section: Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy (Esem)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Microscopic examination of fingermark residues: Opportunities for fundamental studies

Moret¹,

Spindler²,

Lennard³

et al. 2015

Forensic Science International

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“…Other studies have also been carried out in order to study the changes occurring in fingermark composition over time. While GC/MS has often been used for this purpose [1][2][3][4]7,9,48], the use of advanced mass spectrometry techniques [12,14], liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (LC/MS) [49] and m-FTIR [36,41,43,45,46] have also been successful. Further details about these studies are summarised in a number of reviews [50][51][52].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While this study also reported the greatest loss of lipid material during the first 3 months following deposition, no relevant classification of fingermarks based on age could be obtained using principal component analysis (PCA). Another study compared fingermark aging under ambient and vacuum conditions and observed that exposure to vacuum caused a significant reduction in the lipid composition of fingermarks, with the loss of tetradecanoic and pentadecanoic acid particularly noted [41,46]. The effect of temperature on the aging of fingermark residue (from room temperature to 80 8C) was also studied, and a general decrease in the absorbance of the main bands of lipid components was noted with increasing temperature; this was postulated to be the result of degradation to lower molecular weight compounds with subsequent volatilisation [36].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fingermark initial composition and aging using Fourier transform infrared microscopy (μ-FTIR)

Girod

Xiao

Reedy

et al. 2015

Forensic Science International

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This study investigated fingermark residues using Fourier transform infrared microscopy (μ-FTIR) in order to obtain fundamental information about the marks' initial composition and aging kinetics. This knowledge would be an asset for fundamental research on fingermarks, such as for dating purposes. Attenuated total reflection (ATR) and single-point reflection modes were tested on fresh fingermarks. ATR proved to be better suited and this mode was subsequently selected for further aging studies. Eccrine and sebaceous material was found in fresh and aged fingermarks and the spectral regions 1000-1850cm(-1) and 2700-3600cm(-1) were identified as the most informative. The impact of substrates (aluminium and glass slides) and storage conditions (storage in the light and in the dark) on fingermark aging was also studied. Chemometric analyses showed that fingermarks could be grouped according to their age regardless of the substrate when they were stored in an open box kept in an air-conditioned laboratory at around 20°C next to a window. On the contrary, when fingermarks were stored in the dark, only specimens deposited on the same substrate could be grouped by age. Thus, the substrate appeared to influence aging of fingermarks in the dark. Furthermore, PLS regression analyses were conducted in order to study the possibility of modelling fingermark aging for potential fingermark dating applications. The resulting models showed an overall precision of ±3 days and clearly demonstrated their capability to differentiate older fingermarks (20 and 34 days old) from newer ones (1, 3, 7 and 9 days old) regardless of the substrate and lighting conditions. These results are promising from a fingermark dating perspective. Further research is required to fully validate such models and assess their robustness and limitations in uncontrolled casework conditions.

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Chemical changes exhibited by latent fingerprints after exposure to vacuum conditions

Cited by 40 publications

References 23 publications

Analysis of urine, oral fluid and fingerprints by liquid extraction surface analysis coupled to high resolution MS and MS/MS – opportunities for forensic and biomedical science

Analysis of urine, oral fluid and fingerprints by liquid extraction surface analysis coupled to high resolution MS and MS/MS – opportunities for forensic and biomedical science

Microscopic examination of fingermark residues: Opportunities for fundamental studies

Fingermark initial composition and aging using Fourier transform infrared microscopy (μ-FTIR)

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