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Updated: Aug 25, 2025

Diffuse Reflectance Infrared Spectroscopic Identification of Dispersant/Particle Bonding Mechanisms in Functional Inks

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Analysis of Automotive Paint Smears Using Attenuated Total Reflection Infrared Microscopy.

George P Affadu-Danful¹, A Kaan Kalkan², Linqi Zhang²

¹Department of Chemistry, 7618Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA.

Applied Spectroscopy

|October 14, 2022

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Forensic analysis of automotive paint smears is challenging. A new impactor method creates realistic smears, allowing layer isolation and identification via infrared microscopy, improving vehicle identification in hit-and-run cases.

Keywords:

Forensic automotive paint analysis alternating least squares infrared microscopy paint smears trace evidence

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Last Updated: Aug 25, 2025

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Published on: May 8, 2015

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An Inverse Analysis Approach to the Characterization of Chemical Transport in Paints

An Inverse Analysis Approach to the Characterization of Chemical Transport in Paints

Published on: August 29, 2014

Area of Science:

Forensic Science
Materials Science
Analytical Chemistry

Background:

Automotive paint smears at crime scenes lack reference materials, complicating analysis.
Creating and analyzing realistic paint smears due to mixed layers is difficult.

Purpose of the Study:

Develop a method to create realistic automotive paint smears.
Evaluate the analysis of these smears for forensic identification.

Main Methods:

Utilized an impact tester to create simulated vehicle-to-vehicle paint transfer smears.
Employed attenuated total reflection infrared microscopy to isolate individual paint layers.
Applied alternating least squares for spectral analysis and comparison to a library.

Main Results:

The impactor method successfully generated realistic paint smears from 24 original equipment manufacturer (OEM) paints.
Infrared microscopy effectively isolated distinct paint layers from the smears.
Spectral analysis of extracted layers accurately matched smears to their source vehicles in top five hit-lists.

Conclusions:

The developed impactor procedure simulates realistic paint transfer for forensic analysis.
This method enables the isolation and identification of individual paint layers from smears.
Paint smears generated via impact testing can form the basis for effective forensic proficiency tests.