Cyanoacrylate fuming, or superglue fuming, is a widely used technique in laboratories all over the world used to reveal latent fingerprints. Cyanoacrylate fuming has been used for decades with little to no knowledge of the polymerization reaction for ethyl cyanoacrylate and the components in fingerprints. Fingerprints are composed of amino acids, sugars, oils, water, and many other constituents. Our research is focused on isolating which fingerprint constituent results in the most polymerization through fuming of isolated and mixed solutions of different constituents such as alanine, serine, and oils. Through this research, the mechanism for the polymerization reaction can be better understood at a molecular level. The understanding of the polymerization reaction can result in better substituted cyanoacrylates that proved more detailed results for fingerprints.

Investigating the mechanism of cyanoacrylate polymerization in latent fingerprint development

249th National Meeting (2015)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.