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Effects of chemical warfare agent decontaminants on trace survival: Impact on fingermarks deposited on glass

Following a chemical incident involving chemical warfare agents or more broadly, chemical weapons, there are two possible approaches in dealing with the traditional forensic analysis of contaminated exhibits. The first is to analyze the contaminated items under safe conditions (i.e. in laboratories...

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Autores principales: Radgen‐Morvant, Isabelle, Kummer, Natalie, Curty, Christophe, Delémont, Olivier
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9804262/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35997310
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.15115
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author Radgen‐Morvant, Isabelle
Kummer, Natalie
Curty, Christophe
Delémont, Olivier
author_facet Radgen‐Morvant, Isabelle
Kummer, Natalie
Curty, Christophe
Delémont, Olivier
author_sort Radgen‐Morvant, Isabelle
collection PubMed
description Following a chemical incident involving chemical warfare agents or more broadly, chemical weapons, there are two possible approaches in dealing with the traditional forensic analysis of contaminated exhibits. The first is to analyze the contaminated items under safe conditions (i.e. in laboratories dedicated to the handling of such substances), while the second relies on item decontamination prior to processing them in traditional forensic laboratories. One of the main limitations of the latter is the possible degradation or destruction of traces caused by the decontamination process. Hence, it is crucial to have as much information as possible on the impact of different decontamination agents and procedures on traces. This research presents experimental results on the recovery of fingermarks on glass after the application of decontaminants typically used in case of chemical incidents. The impact of 11 decontaminants on fingermarks deposited on glass and on the subsequent enhancement with cyanoacrylate and Small Particle Reagent (SPR) was evaluated (by visual examination) by four evaluators. The results of the study demonstrated that the persistence of fingermarks on glass is highly dependent on the type of decontaminant used. Decontamination agents based on the principle of nucleophilic substitution to neutralize toxic chemicals allowed good subsequent development of fingermarks with SPR. Powdered decontaminants did not show any indication of alteration of fingermarks, whereas decontamination with oxidants leads to variable results.
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spelling pubmed-98042622023-01-03 Effects of chemical warfare agent decontaminants on trace survival: Impact on fingermarks deposited on glass Radgen‐Morvant, Isabelle Kummer, Natalie Curty, Christophe Delémont, Olivier J Forensic Sci Original Papers Following a chemical incident involving chemical warfare agents or more broadly, chemical weapons, there are two possible approaches in dealing with the traditional forensic analysis of contaminated exhibits. The first is to analyze the contaminated items under safe conditions (i.e. in laboratories dedicated to the handling of such substances), while the second relies on item decontamination prior to processing them in traditional forensic laboratories. One of the main limitations of the latter is the possible degradation or destruction of traces caused by the decontamination process. Hence, it is crucial to have as much information as possible on the impact of different decontamination agents and procedures on traces. This research presents experimental results on the recovery of fingermarks on glass after the application of decontaminants typically used in case of chemical incidents. The impact of 11 decontaminants on fingermarks deposited on glass and on the subsequent enhancement with cyanoacrylate and Small Particle Reagent (SPR) was evaluated (by visual examination) by four evaluators. The results of the study demonstrated that the persistence of fingermarks on glass is highly dependent on the type of decontaminant used. Decontamination agents based on the principle of nucleophilic substitution to neutralize toxic chemicals allowed good subsequent development of fingermarks with SPR. Powdered decontaminants did not show any indication of alteration of fingermarks, whereas decontamination with oxidants leads to variable results. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022-08-23 2022-11 /pmc/articles/PMC9804262/ /pubmed/35997310 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.15115 Text en © 2022 The Authors. Journal of Forensic Sciences published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Academy of Forensic Sciences. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Papers
Radgen‐Morvant, Isabelle
Kummer, Natalie
Curty, Christophe
Delémont, Olivier
Effects of chemical warfare agent decontaminants on trace survival: Impact on fingermarks deposited on glass
title Effects of chemical warfare agent decontaminants on trace survival: Impact on fingermarks deposited on glass
title_full Effects of chemical warfare agent decontaminants on trace survival: Impact on fingermarks deposited on glass
title_fullStr Effects of chemical warfare agent decontaminants on trace survival: Impact on fingermarks deposited on glass
title_full_unstemmed Effects of chemical warfare agent decontaminants on trace survival: Impact on fingermarks deposited on glass
title_short Effects of chemical warfare agent decontaminants on trace survival: Impact on fingermarks deposited on glass
title_sort effects of chemical warfare agent decontaminants on trace survival: impact on fingermarks deposited on glass
topic Original Papers
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9804262/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35997310
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.15115
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