Despite the capabilities of suitable non-toxic organic reagents there are still not many to choose from that are regularly used. The Home Office publication ‘Police Science & Technology Strategy’ 2004-2009 highlights fingerprinting as an existing technology insufficient to meet the needs of the service. There is a need to find improved reagents that will develop fingerprints at the scene of crimes in many cases in minutes or hours rather than days.
Researchers at the University have developed a new non-toxic, stable and easy to use developing reagent.The reagent has been tested on paper. The fingerprint developed above was placed on paper from a dry finger; i.e no additional layers of known print enhancers were applied such as sweat or oils from the skin. The formulation and concentration was typical for DFO. It performs well in depletion and split depletion runs compared to DFO.
Key Benefits
- Develops within 20 mins
- Fluorescent
- Good resolution for marks
- Sensitive
- Stable and unaffected by humidity
- Easy to use
Applications
Development of latent fingerprints on paper
IP Status
University of Aberdeen UK patent no. 818687.6
More information: http://www.university-technology.com/details/s692
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