A preliminary study of non-woven fabrics for forensic identification purposes

ABSTRACT

While traditional woven textiles have been the subject of many forensic investigations, non-woven fabrics have received minimal attention thus far. Given the expansion of commercial applications of non-woven fabrics, a preliminary investigation of household wipes has been carried out to characterize the compositions of these widely available non-woven fabrics. Infrared spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analysis were employed to identify the fibre type and additives of three types of commercial wipes. Polyester and/or viscose fibres were found to be the main components and, along with the identification of binders, enable source types to be differentiated. The predicted different sensitivities of the fibre types to biodeterioration highlights the importance of future environmental studies for the correct characterization of non-woven fabrics in evidence.

KEYWORDS:

• non-woven fibres
• infrared spectroscopy
• thermogravimetric analysis
• polyester
• viscose

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Australian Research Council [LE150100015] and the University of Technology Sydney.