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Elemental Profiling of Inkjet Printer Inks Extracted from Printed Documents Using Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry

Rashmi Sharma, T. R. Baggi, A K. Gupta

Abstract


Various methodologies have been used for the comparison and identification of source of printed documents. Although little work has been reported for the identification of a printed document on the basis of elements present in the ink of that document, due to the increased use of coloured printing inks, the current study is focused on the elemental profiling of coloured printer inks. This study provides a successful methodology for the elemental determination of coloured inks used in documents. Total 60 samples of coloured inks, 20 each for Magenta, Cyan, and Yellow colour, printed from printers of four leading companies were analyzed using Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). Experiments conducted on all samples of three primary inks and the results obtained are presented. The technique can provide valuable information if an admitted exemplar/sample is provided for comparison with the suspected / questioned printed document. The proposed method is capable of differentiating and discriminating the coloured inks with good certainty. Keywords-Elemental profiling of inks, Inkjet Printers, ICP-MS of coloured inks, Forensic examination of printer inks.

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