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Chemical Analysis of Gunpowder and Gunshot Residues
The identification of firearms is of paramount importance for investigating crimes involving firearms, as it establishes the link between a particular firearm and firearm-related elements found at a crime scene, such as projectiles and cartridge cases. This identification relies on the visual compar...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10386329/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37513421 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules28145550 |
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author | Serol, Miguel Ahmad, Samir Marcos Quintas, Alexandre Família, Carlos |
author_facet | Serol, Miguel Ahmad, Samir Marcos Quintas, Alexandre Família, Carlos |
author_sort | Serol, Miguel |
collection | PubMed |
description | The identification of firearms is of paramount importance for investigating crimes involving firearms, as it establishes the link between a particular firearm and firearm-related elements found at a crime scene, such as projectiles and cartridge cases. This identification relies on the visual comparison of such elements against reference samples from suspect firearms or those existing in databases. Whenever this approach is not possible, the chemical analysis of the gunpowder and gunshot residue can provide additional information that may assist in establishing a link between samples retrieved at a crime scene and those from a suspect or in the identification of the corresponding model and manufacturer of the ammunition used. The most commonly used method for the chemical analysis of gunshot residue is scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray, which focuses on the inorganic elements present in ammunition formulation, particularly heavy metals. However, a change in the legal paradigm is pushing changes in these formulations to remove heavy metals due to their potential for environmental contamination and the health hazards they represent. For this reason, the importance of the analysis of organic compounds is leading to the adoption of a different set of analytical methodologies, mostly based on spectroscopy and chromatography. This manuscript reviews the constitution of primer and gunpowder formulations and the analytical methods currently used for detecting, characterising, and identifying their compounds. In addition, this contribution also explores how the information provided by these methodologies can be used in ammunition identification and how it is driving the development of novel applications within forensic ballistics. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10386329 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-103863292023-07-30 Chemical Analysis of Gunpowder and Gunshot Residues Serol, Miguel Ahmad, Samir Marcos Quintas, Alexandre Família, Carlos Molecules Review The identification of firearms is of paramount importance for investigating crimes involving firearms, as it establishes the link between a particular firearm and firearm-related elements found at a crime scene, such as projectiles and cartridge cases. This identification relies on the visual comparison of such elements against reference samples from suspect firearms or those existing in databases. Whenever this approach is not possible, the chemical analysis of the gunpowder and gunshot residue can provide additional information that may assist in establishing a link between samples retrieved at a crime scene and those from a suspect or in the identification of the corresponding model and manufacturer of the ammunition used. The most commonly used method for the chemical analysis of gunshot residue is scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray, which focuses on the inorganic elements present in ammunition formulation, particularly heavy metals. However, a change in the legal paradigm is pushing changes in these formulations to remove heavy metals due to their potential for environmental contamination and the health hazards they represent. For this reason, the importance of the analysis of organic compounds is leading to the adoption of a different set of analytical methodologies, mostly based on spectroscopy and chromatography. This manuscript reviews the constitution of primer and gunpowder formulations and the analytical methods currently used for detecting, characterising, and identifying their compounds. In addition, this contribution also explores how the information provided by these methodologies can be used in ammunition identification and how it is driving the development of novel applications within forensic ballistics. MDPI 2023-07-20 /pmc/articles/PMC10386329/ /pubmed/37513421 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules28145550 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Review Serol, Miguel Ahmad, Samir Marcos Quintas, Alexandre Família, Carlos Chemical Analysis of Gunpowder and Gunshot Residues |
title | Chemical Analysis of Gunpowder and Gunshot Residues |
title_full | Chemical Analysis of Gunpowder and Gunshot Residues |
title_fullStr | Chemical Analysis of Gunpowder and Gunshot Residues |
title_full_unstemmed | Chemical Analysis of Gunpowder and Gunshot Residues |
title_short | Chemical Analysis of Gunpowder and Gunshot Residues |
title_sort | chemical analysis of gunpowder and gunshot residues |
topic | Review |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10386329/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37513421 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules28145550 |
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