Chemistry and Physics Faculty Articles

Title

Applicability of Emanating Volatile Organic Compounds from Various Forensic Specimens for Individual Differentiation

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-10-2013

Publication Title

Forensic Science International

Keywords

Forensic chemistry, Biological specimens, Volatile organic compounds (VOCs), Solid phase micro-extraction (SPME), Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS)

ISSN

0379-0738

Volume

226

Issue/No.

1-3

First Page

173

Last Page

182

Abstract

Trace biological materials contain volatile profiles that have yet to be evaluated to determine their value in forensic investigations. The volatiles released by different biological specimens (hand odor, hair, fingernails and saliva) collected from twenty individuals were identified using a solid phase microextraction–gas chromatography–mass spectrometry method. The human scent compounds from each specimen, per subject, were evaluated using Spearman rank correlation to assess the applicability of these compounds for the differentiation of individuals. The volatile organic compounds from each specimen type were readily identified and discriminated. When conducting inter-subject discrimination within a single specimen type, greater than 98.9% of the samples, or individuals, were differentiated for all specimen types. When conducting inter-subject discrimination among the four specimen types 99.6% of the samples were differentiated, at the 0.9 correlation coefficient threshold. Additionally, the only occurrence of cross-correlation between specimen types was observed between hair and fingernails while there were no cross-correlations with hand odor or saliva thereby demonstrating the distinctiveness of these specimens.

Comments

©2013 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

DOI

10.1016/j.forsciint.2013.01.008

Link to Full Text
Peer Reviewed

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