Non-Destructive Discrimination of Blue Inks on Suspected Documents through the Combination of Raman Spectroscopy and Chemometric Analysis
Sruthi Thiraviam Saravanan,
Jaysiva Ganesamurthi,
Shen-Ming Chen,
Tse-Wei Chen,
Chun-Jung Chen,
Keseven Lakshmanan,
Partheeban Chinnamuthu,
Xiaoheng Liu,
Ramachandran Balaji
Affiliations
Sruthi Thiraviam Saravanan
Graduate Institute of Applied Science and Technology, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei 10607, Taiwan
Jaysiva Ganesamurthi
Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, Research and Development Center for Smart Textile Technology, College of Engineering, National Taipei University of Technology, No.1, Section 3, Chung-Hsiao East Road, Taipei 10608, Taiwan
Shen-Ming Chen
Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, Research and Development Center for Smart Textile Technology, College of Engineering, National Taipei University of Technology, No.1, Section 3, Chung-Hsiao East Road, Taipei 10608, Taiwan
Tse-Wei Chen
Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, Research and Development Center for Smart Textile Technology, College of Engineering, National Taipei University of Technology, No.1, Section 3, Chung-Hsiao East Road, Taipei 10608, Taiwan
Chun-Jung Chen
Graduate Institute of Applied Science and Technology, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei 10607, Taiwan
Keseven Lakshmanan
Nano-Architecture and Nano-Technology Laboratory, Graduate Institute of Applied Science and Technology, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei 10607, Taiwan
Partheeban Chinnamuthu
Nano-Architecture and Nano-Technology Laboratory, Graduate Institute of Applied Science and Technology, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei 10607, Taiwan
Xiaoheng Liu
Key Laboratory of Education Ministry for Soft Chemistry and Functional Materials, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China
Ramachandran Balaji
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation, Vijayawada 522302, India
Increasingly sophisticated techniques for falsifying and forging legal documents demand non-destructive and accurate analysis methods. Researchers have extensively investigated ink discrimination through an interdisciplinary analysis involving Raman spectroscopy and chemometrics, which is now regarded as a leading forensic document analysis approach. In this study, a groundbreaking method was developed to identify the specific origin of blue-ink pens used in written documents. By employing Raman spectroscopy in conjunction with principal component analysis (PCA), we successfully differentiated between 45 different blue-ink pens used on various documents. The Raman spectroscopy analysis provided a visual examination of each blue ink’s unique Raman signature, and PCA was then applied to the processed spectral data. Moreover, we successfully distinguished highly similar ink types in documents through the combined use of Raman spectroscopy, Pearson’s correlation analysis, and a statistical approach (PCA).
