Automotive Paint Binders Using Infrared Spectroscopy

This lecture describes the identification of automotive paint binders using infrared spectroscopy, with an emphasis on key absorptions to seek when examining such spectra.

Infrared spectroscopy is one of the main tools used by the forensic paint examiner to obtain binder and pigment information about paint evidence. Automotive finishes comprise a prominent subcategory of such evidence, and may be the subject of either a comparative analysis or a means to help identify the type of vehicle involved in a hit-and-run case. Classification of automotive paint binders is a very important step when using the Paint Data Query (PDQ) system to facilitate vehicle identification.