Forensic comparison analysis of plastic vehicle headlamp lens by gel permeation chromatography and statistical methods

Abstract Comparison analysis of vehicle headlamp lens fragments can help establish links between the relevant vehicle with crime scenes or provide useful information to search the related vehicles. Headlamp lenses are mainly made of polycarbonate with very few signature additives, which makes them difficult to be discriminated by commonplace examination methods of infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscope coupled with energy dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy. In this study, molecular weights (Mw) and the polydispersity index (PDI) value of 50 vehicle headlamp lens fragments from different vehicles were measured by gel permeation chromatography, and Hotelling's T 2 statistical method was applied to facilitate interpretation of the data. Among the total pairs of comparisons between 50 samples, 62 pairs cannot be distinguished, resulting in a discrimination rate of 94.94%. It suggested that the method of gel permeation chromatography and Hotelling's T 2 statistical analysis were powerful to make further discrimination between plastic vehicle headlamp lens fragments.