Dichroism measurements in forensic fibre examination. Part 3 - dyed cotton and viscose fibres.
A number of dyed cellulosic fibres were examined with plane polarized light on their dichroic behavior by microscopy and microspectrophotometry (MSP-PPL). Significant dichroic effects (mostly hypochromic effects and hypsochromic bands shifts) were reported. The effect is related to the chemical structure: some dye structures always possess dichroism (azo, stilbene, thiazole and oxazine), some dyes demonstrate sometimes dichroic effects (anthraquinoid, indigoid) while other structures never demonstrate dichroic effects (sulphur, diphenylmethanes, triarylmethanes, phthalocyanines). In some cases a different dichroic behavior was found for the same dyes applied on cotton and on viscose.
Discrimination of reactively-dyed cotton fibres with thin layer chromatography and UV microspectrophotometry.
Reactively-dyed black, navy blue and medium red cotton samples showing metamerism under fluorescent tube illumination were examined. Optical microscopy (bright field, polarization and fluorescence microscopy) was used, followed by microspectrometry in the visible range (MSP Vis), to differentiate the samples in each block of colours. Additionally, the non-discriminated samples were subjected both to microspectrophotometry in the UV-range (MSP UV) and to enzymatic digestion followed by high performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) on the digests. While it was found that both methods may potentially result in higher discrimination, preparation of reactively-dyed cotton for HPTLC was found to be a very tedious and time-consuming step and HPTLC only led to a better discrimination than MSP UV for the red cotton samples. The results suggest that in order to increase the discrimination for reactively-dyed cotton fibres, measurement of the UV absorption spectrum (MSP UV) is preferred over HPTLC.
ANALYSIS OF DYESTUFFS IN SYNTHETIC SINGLE FIBERS BY HIGH PERFORMANCE LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY USING MULTI-WAVELENGTH DETECTION METHOD
Three classes of dyes and synthetic fibers (including dyed fibers), such as disperse dyes (polyester or diacetate), cationic dyes (acryl) and acid dyes (nylon) were examined for the extraction from a single fiber and successive analysis by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with multi-wavelength detection.