| Title: | Forensic profiling of non-volatile organic compounds in soil using ultra-performance liquid chromatography: a pilot study |
| Author(s): | Lee LC; Ishak AA; Nai Eyan AA; Zakaria AF; Kharudin NS; Noor NAM; |
| Address: | "Program of Forensic Sciences, Centre for Diagnostic, Therapeutic & Investigative Studies, Faculty of Health Sciences, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia. Institute of IR 4.0, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia. Makmal Forensik Polis DiRaja Malaysia (PDRM), Cheras, Malaysia" |
| DOI: | 10.1080/20961790.2021.1899407 |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 2471-1411 (Electronic) 2096-1790 (Print) 2471-1411 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "Soil is of particular interest to the forensic community because it can be used as valuable associative evidence to link a suspect to a victim or a crime scene. Liquid chromatography is a powerful analytical tool for organic compound analysis. Recently, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) has proven to be an efficient method for forensic soil analysis, especially in discriminating soils from proximity locations. However, ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC), which is much more sensitive than HPLC, has never been explored in this context. This study proposed a UPLC method for profiling non-volatile organic compounds in three Malaysian soils (red, brown and yellowish-brown soils). The three soils were analysed separately to assess the effects of individual chromatographic parameters: (a) elution programme (isocratic vs. two gradient programmes); (b) flow rate (0.1 vs. 0.2 mL/min); (c) extraction solvent (acetonitrile vs. methanol) and (d) detection wavelength (230 vs. 254 nm). The injection volume and total run time were set to 5 microL and 35 min, respectively. Consequently, each soil sample gave 24 different chromatograms. Results showed that the most desirable chromatographic parameters were (a) isocratic elution; (b) flow rate at 0.2 mL/min and (c) acetonitrile extraction solvent. The proposed UPLC system is expected to be a feasible method for profiling non-volatile organic compounds in soil, and is more chemical-efficient than a comparable HPLC system" |
| Keywords: | Forensic sciences liquid chromatography non-volatile organic compound soil; |
| Notes: | "PubMed-not-MEDLINELee, Loong Chuen Ishak, Ab Aziz Nai Eyan, Ameeta A/P Zakaria, Anas Fahmi Kharudin, Nurul Syahiera Noor, Nor Azman Mohd eng England 2021/07/12 Forensic Sci Res. 2021 Jul 12; 7(4):761-773. doi: 10.1080/20961790.2021.1899407. eCollection 2022" |
