Preliminary investigation of using volatile organic compounds from human expired air, blood and urine for locating entrapped people in earthquakes

Membrane Inlet Mass Spectrometry for Homeland Security and Forensic Applications

“…[4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. During the last few years, human body VOC emissions have been a live topic in many fields, such as in medicine as potential disease or disorder biomarkers [11], in search and rescue operations as tools for the early detection of entrapped people in the debris of collapsed buildings [12,13], in homeland security applications as indicators of illegal human presence in confined areas [14], or even as markers of buried human bodies in forensic investigations [15].…”

The analytical determination of the uniqueness and persistence of the volatile components of human scent using optimized collection methods

“…The volatile components o f blood have been identified (Appendix B) and include alcohols, aldehydes, and alkanes [27,28]. The components o f human breath have also been determined (Appendix B) and contain both aldehydes and alkanes [28,29,30] and the headspace o f urine has also been evaluated (Appendix B) for the composition o f VOCs [28].…”

Comparison of Medical and Forensic Profiling Potential of Volatile Biomarkers from Different Biological Specimens from Individuals and Across Populations

“…Research on VOC detection across multiple specimens is usually only limited to two, at most three specimens [15][16][17] . Statheropoulos et al reported the use of VOCs from human expired air, blood, and urine for locating entrapped people in earthquakes to determine whether a relatively small target group of VOCs common to all three matrices can be determined 18 .…”

“…The optimal extraction time for blood samples was evaluated on a combination of the number of human scent compounds extracted as well as the abundance of selected human scent compounds of various functional groups (decane, toluene, heptanal, and 1-octen-3-ol). Eighteen (18) hours was determined to be the optimal extraction time for collected blood VOCs as shown in Figure 17 and Figure …”

“…Common names for some of the compounds are given in parentheses and italicized. Many of the presented compounds have been previously reported to be volatile emanation compounds of human skin 5,14,28,29,123 , saliva 127 , breath 44,48,97,128 , volatile constituents of human blood 18,62,66,67 , and urine [70][71][72] . Compounds denoted by "en" are possibly endogenous compounds, while compounds denoted by "ex" are possibly of exogenous origin.…”