Analysis of ethyl and methyl centralite vibrational spectra for mapping organic gunshot residues

Abstract

Detection of ethyl and methyl centralites in gunshot residues is important in forensic science due to their limited contamination from environmental sources compared to other organic residues. However, the vibrational frequencies of centralites are little explored and their frequency assignments are incomplete. Herein, we investigated vibrational frequencies of centralites based on Density functional theory (DFT) to understand their vibrations. The simulated frequencies exhibit excellent agreement with the experimental data, and the detailed assignments are comprehensively elaborated. We also demonstrate that centralite particles could be detected through Raman imaging based on their fingerprints. This work is very important for the further vibrational studies in detecting and tracing centralites in gunshot residues.