Journal
JOURNAL OF FORENSIC SCIENCES
Volume 61, Issue 3, Pages 725-734Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/1556-4029.13110
Keywords
forensic science; questioned document examination; printing inks; scanning electron microscopy; mass spectrometry; toner; inkjet; offset; intaglio
Categories
Funding
- Technical Support Working Group (TSWG) [IS-CS-3683]
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Improvements in printing technology have exacerbated the problem of document counterfeiting, prompting the need for analytical techniques that better characterize inks for forensic analysis and comparisons. In this study, 319 printing inks (toner, inkjet, offset, and Intaglio) were analyzed directly on the paper substrate using scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) and Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). As anticipated, the high sensitivity of LA-ICP-MS pairwise comparisons resulted in excellent discrimination (average of similar to 99.6%) between different ink samples from each of the four ink types and almost 100% correct associations between ink samples known to originate from the same source. SEM-EDS analysis also resulted in very good discrimination for different toner and intaglio inks (>97%) and 100% correct association for samples from the same source. SEM-EDS provided complementary information to LA-ICP-MS for certain ink types but showed limited utility for the discrimination of inkjet and offset inks.
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