Advancing the Forensic Analysis of Dyed Fibers by Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

Dyed fibers are commonly obtained as trace evidence at crime scenes. Time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOF MS) has potential to substantially advance forensic dyed fiber analysis by providing "exact mass" data of dyes and other chemicals present in dyed fibers. Data from two approaches to using TOF MS for accurately identifying the molecular formula of dyes are reported. One involves extraction of dye from 100 μg or less of fiber followed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC-TOF MS) analysis. The other is time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometric (TOF SIMS) analysis of the surface and cross sections of dyed fibers without extraction. Both approaches can clearly identify commercially important dyes applied to polyester fibers.

Toward Locard’s Exchange Principle: Recent Developments in Forensic Trace Evidence Analysis

“…49 Zhou et al used both a destructive and a nondestructive technique to analyze dyed fibers. 50 High performance liquid chromatography coupled with time-of-flight MS (HPLC-TOF-MS) was used to identify extracted dyes while time-of-flight secondary ion MS (TOF-SIMS) was used to examine the surface and cross sections of fibers. Both methods were able to 59 Heider el al.…”

Molecular detection of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in water using time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry

“…Thus, our results demonstrate that ToF-SIMS can detect PFAS at concentrations in ppt level using micrometer of real water samples, i.e., significantly lower than the estimated LODs. Furthermore, our finding show that ToF-SIMS has the potential to tackle with the challenge of determining PFAS contamination in drinking water and groundwater using the forensic analysis (Zhou et al, 2016;Terlier et al, 2020) and source tracking…”