Fingerprints have been utilized for identification purposes for several thousand years. The difficulty in detecting them resides in choosing the right reagent to visualize them.2-hydroxy-1,4-naphtoquinone commonly called lawsone1, extracted from the leaves of Lawsonia inermis and usually responsible of the staining properties of henna, has been proposed for the development of latent prints. The difficulties in using this compound as a fingerprint detector are its solubility and inability to detect compounds that are themselves photoluminescent.We have chemically modified the molecule of lawsone to prepare derivatives with improved fluorescence and better solubilities properties. Each compound was reacted with different aminoacids (AAs) to understand if the chemical structure of the AA influences emission and excitation maxima of the complexes formed. We have also performed fluorescence studies of fingerprints stained with solutions of the compounds prepared.1. Jelly, R.; Lewis, S. W.; Lennard, C.; Lim, K. F.; Almog, J. Chem. Commun. 2008 , 3513

Preparation and spectroscopic characterization of chemical derivatives of Lawsone: Novel reagents to detect fingerprints

245th National Meeting (2013)

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