F Activity 6: Fingerprints

Developing Latent Prints

As you can tell from your previous laboratory activities in this unit, a
good forensic scientist relies on the physical and chemical properties
of their evidence to identify more specifics on that piece of evidence.
In the glass analysis you used the physical property of density; when
studying blood you relied on a chemical property of the iron(II) ion;
when identifying inks, you used the physical structure of the
molecules and their ability to absorb light, and in your in-depth study
of white powders, you used both chemical and physical properties of
the white powder to make a positive identification.
A forensic scientist’s treatment of the most commonly identified form
of evidence – fingerprints – is no different. In lab you will rely on
physical and chemical properties of fingerprint residues to make a
positive identification. By identifying fingerprints, you’ll not only
discover new forensic techniques, but you will also have a chance to
observe solubility (in something other than water), review double
replacement reactions, and learn more about another class of
chemical reactions (oxidation-reduction reactions).

P
P R E P A R I N G

WHAT DO YOU THINK? • LE ARNING OBJECTIVES

If we are going to take the time to analyze fingerprint residues, we best first determine what a fingerprint
residue is. Obtain a clean glass slide from your instructor. Rub your thumb behind you ear and then
smear it across the glass slide. Observe under a hand lens.

1. Draw what you observe in the hand lens. Look carefully!

2. What do you think the print is composed of? Name what you can see and what you think is there
but can’t see.

Finally, we need to see a control fingerprint. We’ll use your fingerprint in this lab. Before heading back to
lab, be sure to get your fingerprint done with the sticker and placed in the preparing section of your
laboratory entry.

Write an objective for this activity. Please note: we will go over theses answers as a class before heading
back into the lab! Make sure you make corrections to your thoughts in this section.

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E
E X P E R I M E N T I N G

DUSTING • SILVER NITRATE • MATCHING PRINTS

This lab will be set up a bit differently than your previous activities. Since there is so much material
packed into one forensic concept (identifying white powders), this experiment will be broken into four
sections for experimenting. An overall analysis will be required with the construction of a flow chart under
analyzing. The four critically thinking questions will also serve as the portion that unifies all four of these
different sections.
Part A: Dusting for Prints
Dusting is the most common technique found on crime shows. Dusting has its obvious positives (easy
and effective), though it is usually limited to nonporous surfaces such as glass or plastic.
1. On a separate clean slide, carefully roll your left index finger across the surface of the slide.
If you are particularly dry, wipe your finger behind your ear or on the side of your nose. Once
you’ve made the print, place it over a white piece of paper.
2. Cover the slide with a very small amount of your fingerprint powder (carbon powder).
3. Gently brush the excess powder off the surface, being careful not to press too hard with the
soft brush.
4. In your notebook, write how the quality of this compares to your fingerprint you took in
Preparing.

Part B: Silver Nitrate Testing

Next, you will look at silver nitrate testing. This method is not exactly preferred method since it is
sensitive, not very effective on smooth surfaces, and destroys other pieces of evidence in the print. It
does, though, contain some great reaction chemistry, so it is included in here for you to gain experience
with two common reaction types: double replacement and oxidation-reduction reactions.
1. Using clean, distilled-rinsed, graduated cylinders, measure 50-mL of 0.1M silver nitrate and
add it to a clean, distilled-rinsed, 250 ml beaker.
2. Measure 50-mL of 0.1M sodium chloride solution and mix it with the silver nitrate in the 250-
mL beaker. Note your observations.
3. Filter the precipitate using your filter apparatus (see your lab notebook entry for Atoms and
Their Masses – Activity 3 in the Periodic Table unit for notes).
4. In your observation section, write the word equation for this double replacement reaction.
Using the solubility rules, identify the states of matter in your equation.
5. Once filtered, remove the paper from the funnel and place a penny in the middle of the
precipitate.
6. Expose the precipitate to UV light and write your observations in your notebook. Answer:
what was the point of the penny?
7. The exposure to UV light was a decomposition and an oxidation-reduction reaction of
your precipitate, resulting in silver metal and chlorine gas (remember: chlorine is one of the
diatomics). Using chemical formulas and states of matter, write the oxidation-reduction
reaction observed in step six in the observations portion of this entry.
8. Using these two reactions, write a how you might use this technique to find a fingerprint,
assuming a nice spray bottle of the 0.1M silver nitrate is available for you. If there is time, try
this technique for finding a fingerprint. Call Mr. Pretzer over first, so that he knows you are
giving it a shot. Evaluate the quality of the print compare to your Preparing print.
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Part C: Evaluating Prints
Now that you’ve observed the science behind fingerprint collection, you can now identify and compare
fingerprints. Read the Analyzing reading below that discusses Fingerprint Basics and Classification of
Fingerprints, then come back to address the questions in Part C.
1. In your notebook, summarize specifically how to use fingerprint evidence to make a positive
identification of a criminal. Define terms you use in your summary.
2. Using terms from the summary, make observations of your fingerprint made in Preparing.
Compare and contrast the prints from Part A and B now using the terms.

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A N A L Y Z I N G

RE ADING • QUESTIONS

Reading: Fingerprints
Fingerprint Basics
Englishman Francis Galton calculated that there are over 64 billion different possible fingerprint
patterns. Although this number has since been disputed, it is agreed that the probability of any two
people having the same print is very, very low. The skin on all fingertips has numerous ridges and
valleys. The ridges contain sweat pores. The sweat pores excrete fatty oils, salts, and water onto the
ridge surfaces. When a finger touches an object, the mixture of oils, salts such as sodium chloride
(NaCl), and water is transferred to surface of the object. This creates an “invisible” fingerprint of oil,
salt, water on the object. These prints, which cannot be seen with the naked eye, are called latent
prints. There are three factors that make fingerprints valuable evidence. Besides their uniqueness,
fingerprints also don’t change as a person gets older, and they can be classified.

The Classification of Fingerprints

A fingerprint may be characterized by its ridge characteristics and its ridge patterns. A single
fingerprint may contain up to 150 individual ridge characteristics called minutiae. It is the type and
location of minutiae that make a print unique. The diagram below illustrates some of the many
different types of minutiae. Generally, 10-16 identical minutiae are required to consider two prints to
be a match.

Fingerprints also contain general ridge characteristics that allow them to be classified. As mentioned
in the lab, there are three different types of ridge patterns: the loop, the whorl, and the arch.

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 The loop is the most common pattern of ridges. Approximately 65% of the population’s fingerprints
are loops. In a loop, the ridges enter and exit the print from the same side of the finger. The whorl is
the second most common pattern at 30%. A whorl must have two deltas (triangular pattern of ridge
lines) on either side of the center of the print. Finally, the arch is the least common type of fingerprint
at 5%. Arches look like little tents or hills in the middle of the print. It is important to remember
fingerprints cannot be considered a match based on the ridge patterns alone. A match is determined
by the position and type of minutiae.

Developing Latent Prints

As you have probably seen on television and in the movies, there are numerous ways to develop
latent prints. They include dusting, iodine fuming, superglue fuming, and silver nitrate developing. All
the methods work by interacting with one of the three components in the print: the fatty oils, the salts,
or the water. In this activity we studied the silver nitrate method.

If all else fails when looking for latent prints, one of the last methods to be used is the silver nitrate
method. Silver nitrate solution contains silver nitrate dissolved in water. When silver nitrate is placed
on a print a double replacement reaction occurs between the silver nitrate in the solution and the
sodium chloride (salt) in the print. We have seen this type of reaction before in Activity 4. A double
replacement reaction is a reaction in which the positive ions in the compounds switch places.

As you observed in Part A, silver nitrate will react with sodium chloride to form the precipitate silver
chloride, AgCl. This same reaction happens on the surface of a latent print when it is painted with
silver nitrate solution:

AgNO3(aq) + NaCl(s) → AgCl(s) + NaNO3(aq)

Painted on Salt Precip itate
the print in the formed on the
print print.

Silver chloride is formed on the surface of the print. However, at this point the print is still invisible.

Why Silver Chloride Turns Gray

Silver chloride is an ionic compound. Ionic compounds are composed of positive and negative ions
attracted to each other. They are arranged in an orderly repeating pattern to maximize the attractive
forces between the oppositely charged ions and to minimize the repulsive forces between the like
charged ions. This regular repeating pattern is called the crystalline structure of the compound. The
crystalline structure for silver chloride is shown below.

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 Notice the alternating pattern of positive silver ions and negative chloride ions. When a crystal of
silver chloride is exposed to light, the light has enough energy to promote electrons in the crystal to a
higher energy level. When electrons are in the higher level (called an “excited state,” remember
Activity 3 and the luminal reaction?) they can undergo reactions that do not usually occur. Ultimately,
a chloride ion in the crystal loses one of its electrons to a silver ion. The silver ion gains the electron
and becomes silver metal. The chlorine atom combines with another chlorine atom that has lost an
electron to form chlorine gas. Silver metal is gray; its presence explains why the precipitate turns
gray. This process is repeated throughout the crystal and the net reaction is:

2Ag+Cl- → 2Ag0 + Cl20

When an atom or ion loses an electron we say that it has been oxidized. In this reaction the chloride
ion loses an electron and is oxidized. The silver ion takes the electron and becomes silver metal.
When an atom or ion gains an electron we say that it has been reduced. This type of reaction is an
oxidation-reduction reaction. Keep these basic terms in mind, because you will learn more about
oxidation-reduction reactions in the next activity.

Upon exposure to UV light, the silver ion in the silver chloride is converted into silver metal and the
print turns gray. This creates a visible image of the print in much the same manner as photography.
Also, silver nitrate reacts with the proteins in your skin. If you spill silver nitrate on your skin, then
when you go outside a similar developing reaction occurs because there is UV light in sunlight, and
you end up with a black or brown stain on your skin. As a last note, if the silver nitrate method is used
by forensic chemists when analyzing evidence, it is one of the last methods used to visualize the
prints. This is because silver nitrate destroys other forms of evidence, such as DNA.

Questions: Fingerprints
1. In your own words, describe how the silver nitrate technique works.
2. Would the silver nitrate technique work on a piece of evidence that had been soaked in
water? Explain. (Hint, think back to the solubility rules in the White Powders lab.)
3. Complete the following double replacement word equations by writing out the full
equations using chemical formulae and states of matter.
a. copper (II) sulfate + sodium carbonate →
b. cadmium (II) chloride + sodium hydroxide →
c. lead (II) nitrate + sodium sulfate →
d. nickel (II) chloride + sodium carbonate →
4. What makes an oxidation-reduction (redox) reaction different from other reactions?
5. What does it mean for a substance to be reduced? Oxidized?

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 C R I T I C A L L Y T H I N K I N G

CT ME AN? • KNOW? • BELIEVE? • CARE?

What does the activity mean?

Chemistry explains the macroscopic phenomenon (what you observe) with an explanation of what
happens at the nanoscopic level (atoms and molecules) using symbolic structures as a way to
communicate. Explain the meaning of this activity by completing the MNS table.

MACRO NANO SYMBOLIC

Name all of the types of How are ions and atoms Give the skeleton formulas
reactions we’ve encountered changed in an oxidation- (with A, B, C, D’s….) for each
thus far in this class. reduction reaction? type of chemical reaction we’ve
encountered (see Macro).

How do I know?
What is your evidence that a human fingerprint contains sodium chloride?

Why do I believe?
Using the terms we’ve learned in Forensics AC5: White Powders and AC6: Fingerprints, re-analyze
the reaction and your observations from Periodic Table’s AC3: Making Copper.

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