Abstract
Documents are frequent targets of fraud and adulteration. Sometimes it is not enough to determine the document’s authenticity or authorship, but it is also necessary to demonstrate when the document was signed or written. Determining the age of a document, also known as ink dating analysis, is still a challenge for the forensic examiners. There are two main approaches for the dating of ballpoint pen inks: the static method, which is based on the characterization and identification of the ink composition and comparison to a reference collection, and the dynamic method, which involves the study of ink’s processes and alterations that occur with time, considering environmental aging factors such as light and humidity. This article aims to provide a comprehensive systematic review of the studies regarding ballpoint ink characterization and dating, in the last ten years. There are several methods, destructive and non-destructive, which are capable of characterizing and differentiating blue and black ballpoint pens that have shown applicability to the static approach. Regarding the dynamic dating methods, most studies quantified the loss of 2-phenoxyethanol (2-PE) solvent over time using GC-MS, or studied the dyes degradation through different methods. Although ink dating approaches offer relatively good accuracy, there is still more research to be done, such as the documents’ storage conditions evaluation, the influence of initial ink quantity variation between different pen brands and writing fists, and the type of paper.
Highlights
The Forensic Documentoscopy aims to identify information regarding the document history, as well as its authenticity and the detection of a variety of alterations
Ink characterization Over the past few years, different methods have been developed for the ballpoint pen inks characterization regarding mainly the dyes and additives of the inks
Those are destructive methods and there were required for the following techniques: high-performance thin layer liquid chromatography (HPTLC) (High Performance Thin Layer Chromatography)[14,16,27,29,31,43,44,47,50,58,59,61], Capillary Electrophoresis[33,57], ESI-Mass Spectroscopy (MS) (Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry) 18,55, LDI-MS (Laser Desorption/Ionization Mass Spectrometry)[53], UV-Vis (UV-Vis Spectroscopy)[17,31,40,41,42,48,50,58,61] and Orbitrap Mass Analyzer[15,20]
Summary
The Forensic Documentoscopy aims to identify information regarding the document history, as well as its authenticity and the detection of a variety of alterations. Pen ink dating analysis can be instrumental in those instances, but still a challenging task for forensic scientists due to the variety of factors that can influence the analysis[1,2,3]. A document’s dating analysis involves the chemical, optical and physical examination of ink and paper. Ballpoint pens are composed of dyes, vehicles, resins, and additives[1,4]. The vehicles are the substances responsible for the homogenization of the ink’s compounds, primarily solvents. Additives are compounds with specific characteristics, improving the ink’s performance[1,4]
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