A Study on the Use of Tinospora Cordifolia Powder for Latent Fingerprint Detection on Non-Porous Surfaces

Abstract

There are a lot of criminal cases nowadays. Using latent fingerprint analysis is an alternative means to detect the criminals. This experimental research aimed to study the use of powder from Tinospora cordifolia to detect latent fingerprints on non-porous objects to observe the quality of the fingerprints. Tinospora cordifolia powder from Tinospora cordifolia’s stem contains phytosterol which have the structure similar to cholesterol that is a derivative of fatty acid. So phytosterol can match with sebum to visualized latent fingerprints on non-porous objects. In this experiment CDs, glass and ceramic plates were used to collect an average of minutiae measured with fingerprint. From the results of the experiment, it was found that the Tinospora cordifolia powder can make latent fingerprints visualize on all 3 types of surfaces. And from the minutiae collected, it was found that CDs have the most average of minutia, followed by glass and ceramic plates, respectively. When comparing the average of the different points at a significance level of 0.05, it was also found that the special characteristics of CDs and glass surfaces were not significantly different, but it was significantly different when compared to ceramic plates