Impact of Storage Conditions on Silver Nano-Solution and its Effect in Developing Latent Fingerprints

Fingerprints play a vital role of evidence in a court of law. Among other types of fingerprints, latent fingerprints are hidden once and remain unnoticed by the perpetrators. There are several advanced methods to assist latent fingerprints. One such method is silver nano-solution, which effectively develops latent fingerprints on the porous surface. Despite this, the latent fingerprint-developing agent’s steadiness is required to prove enhanced results. The present study focuses on the impact of storage conditions on silver nano-solution and its effect on developing latent fingerprints on a paper surface. The Silver Nanoparticles (AgNPs) are synthesized by wet chemical method; the impact of storage conditions at room temperature and lower (4°C) temperature on the stability of AgNPs is also investigated. The synthesized AgNPs characterized using UV-Vis spectrophotometer. It was observed that silver nano-solution stored at room temperature showed lower visibility of latent fingerprints, in contrast to silver nano-solution stored at a lower (4°C) temperature which depicted clear visualization of the ridge characteristics.