Written by Michelle Ridley Tuesday, 02 February 2010 14:42
MORE commonly known as hair dye or fake tattoo ink, henna could one day be used by police to detect fingerprints on documents.
It’s one of a range of alternative fingerprinting reagents being tested by researchers at Curtin University.
PhD student Renee Jelly says it was the way henna dyes skin that gave her the idea to test it on fingerprints.
“The active dying ingredient that makes henna dye your skin is called lawsone, and I wondered of it could react with fingerprints on paper,” she says.
“The amino acids in fingerprints turn a purple-brown colour when reacted with lawsone.
“Amino acids have the ability to bind to paper, which makes them extremely long-lived.”
Miss Jelly says the technique could eventually be used by police to complement the systems they are currently using.
“It’s about offering a range of fingerprint reagents that are different colours and luminesce at different wavelengths,” she says.
Several substances related to lawsone are also being tested by the Curtin team.
“Lawsone is a naphthoquinone, and there’s a lot of papers that talk about the ability of naphthoquinones to react with amino acids,” Miss Jelly says.
“We’ve tested a range of other naphthoquinones, and so far they’ve all worked.”
The research is partly funded by a Curtin Linkage Grant in collaboration with the Australian Federal Police, Forensic Science South Australia, Western Australia Police and researchers at University of Canberra, Deakin University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Further information: Renee Jelly (
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