Identification and characterization of textile fibers by thermal analysis

Textile fibers are ubiquitous in the sense that they are present in the fabric of clothing, furniture, floor and wall covering. A remarkable variety of textile fibers with different chemical compositions are produced for many different commercial applications. As fibers are readily transferred they are frequently recovered from crime scenes as trace evidence and may provide useful forensic information for identification purposes. The objective of the experiment described in this paper is to evaluate specific thermal analysis techniques (DSC and TGA) as means by which textile fibers or cloth fragments may be reliably identified using experimentally simple and reproducible instrumental methods. The results are analyzed to determine whether these techniques may serve to identify different textiles on the basis of their thermal behavior, to decide if sample matching is possible and to evaluate detection limits for the sample-instrument combination used.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT