Age estimation of bloodstains based on Raman spectroscopy and chemometrics

Abstract

The accurate estimation of the bloodstain age, which is one of the important biological evidence of crime scene, can provide a lot of information related to crime. How to extract the information quickly and accurately from bloodstains without damage has been a focused problem. In this study, a bloodstains age estimation method based on Raman spectroscopy and chemometrics was developed. As many as 11 simulated environments based on different temperature and humidity were constructed in the method, and bloodstains of three species including human were studied. The influence of environmental factors such as temperature and humidity on the variation of Raman spectral peaks during the aging process of bloodstains was analyzed using the e-index fitting. When the humidity was kept constant, the increase of temperature generally promoted the changes of the spectral peaks. When the temperature was kept constant, the increase of humidity generally slowed the changes of spectral peaks. These works provide data support for the further development of Raman spectroscopy for bloodstain age estimation and could accelerate its application in actual scenes.