Use of spectroscopic techniques in forensic documentoscopy and papilloscopy
Keywords: Pen Inks, Spectroscopy, Chemometrics, Forensic Documentoscopy.
Abstract
Use of spectroscopic and chemometric techniques in the areas of documentoscopy and forensic papilloscopy.
Forensic Sciences have been following the evolution of technical-scientific knowledge and there are currently several areas of specialization in Criminalistics. Among them, we can mention Forensic Documentoscopy, which consists of a set of specialized knowledge aimed at studying and interpreting the material traces of document forgeries and alterations, which may be of interest to the clarification and proof of factual issues, at the service of justice. In this sense, the traces associated with pen inks present in documents collected at a crime scene are object of study of Forensic Documentoscopy, since it allows determining the veracity or otherwise of documents for judicial purposes. Given the need to standardize the operational procedures for document analysis at the Forensic Institutes, Forensic Scientist must develop a protocol for pen ink analysis. In this work, we aimed to combine spectroscopic methods, such as Raman,FTIR, UV-Vis, ICP-MS and XRF with chemometric methods such as PCA to allow discriminating manual releases of 97 pens inks of different brands in blue color sold in the national territory in a fast, safe and efficient way. Preliminary results indicated that the combination of spectroscopy with chemometrics enabled the distinction until the moment between the 5 brands of pen inks of ballpoint type available in Brazil in a significant way.