Taggant materials in forensic science: A review

Abstract

Highlights The use of forensic taggant technologies has become considerably more widespread  The application of taggant materials for forensic purposes are described  The different coding methods used in commercial marking materials to infer identity are explored  Recent developments in the field are discussed along with future perspectives AbstractThe use of taggant technology to mark objects for the purpose of identification is becoming a significant part of national crime reduction strategies. Taggants may be able to prevent or monitor criminal offences by associating an object with a specific piece of information. While the material properties of a taggant will largely vary between application purposes, a specific 'coding' element will generally be incorporated to infer marker uniqueness. With the speed, simplicity and accuracy of coding component analysis largely determining the overall efficacy of taggants, continuing advances in portable in-field analysis, nanotechnology and material science should have allowed for the development of new and improved forensic marking agents. However, the limited amount of recent research in this area suggests that this is not the case. This critical review therefore examines the current state of presently available taggants before attempting to offer insight into the future direction of forensic marking technology.

Reactive not Proactive: Explosive Identification Taggant History and Introduction of the Nuclear Barcode Taggant Model

“…Incomplete testing prevented a full assessment of the survivability and recoverability of isotopic taggants in post-blast residue, as only small-scale tests had been performed [1]. Due to their low concentrations and the necessity of identifying the different isotopes present, analysis requires more specialized equipment and techniques such as mass spectroscopy, which reduces the number of facilities capable of performing the analysis [1,4,5]. The low concentrations of the isotopic taggants were thought to significantly reduce the chances of environmental risks or cause many issues with contamination of mined raw materials by the taggants, although not enough data was available at the time to fully assess their impact [1].…”

“…Research into taggants has continued to the modern day [16,4,5,17], though available testing information and data remain scarce [5]. No new categories of identification taggants have been identified; however, improvements and refinements to the categories of physical, chemical, and biological taggants have occurred.…”

“…No new categories of identification taggants have been identified; however, improvements and refinements to the categories of physical, chemical, and biological taggants have occurred. Physical taggants remain an active area of research [4,16,18,19,5]. One type of physical taggants that have been proposed are particles containing quantum dots that emit light at specific frequencies, and the combination of frequencies can be used to encode information [4,5].…”

“…Physical taggants remain an active area of research [4,16,18,19,5]. One type of physical taggants that have been proposed are particles containing quantum dots that emit light at specific frequencies, and the combination of frequencies can be used to encode information [4,5]. Physical taggants where rare earths or other fluorescent materials such as dyes are introduced to a carrier particle have been developed as well [4,16,5,17].…”

“…Identification taggants are used in fields such as pharmaceuticals and automotive manufacturing to provide information about materials [4,5]. One example use is to prove the source or manufacturer of a product to safeguard against counterfeits [5], or for tracing materials that are then used to produce unlicensed copies or illegal goods [5].…”