LONDON: Fingerprinting powders are still the go-to tool for investigators, both real and fictional. However, instead of oils, some fingerprints only leave a residue of amino acids and other compounds that fingerprinting powder doesn’t adhere to very well. A new technique developed at Australia’s CSIRO not only reveals fingerprints in cases where dusting won’t, but makes them glow under UV light.
After his house was broken into, CSIRO materials scientist Dr Kang Liang saw first hand how important fingerprinting is for law enforcement agencies. Dusting for prints is still the most common technique used by investigators, but there are a number of different methods to collect latent (hidden) fingerprints from a crime scene.
Superglue fuming or the use of chemical reagents are widely used when dusting fails, but these can be time consuming or will usually require the object being examined to be sent to a lab, which isn’t always possible. Liang wondered if new materials might provide another alternative that could overcome the shortcomings of current techniques.
He turned to metal-organic framework (MOF) crystals that, when applied to surfaces in a drop of liquid, rapidly bind to fingerprint residue, including proteins, peptides, fatty acids and salts. In around 30 seconds, this results in an ultrathin coating that forms an exact copy of the fingerprint and glows under UV light, enabling high resolution images to be easily captured for analysis. Different colored fingerprints are also possible by altering the chemistry of the solution.
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