Forensic Science International 161 (2006) 36–40

www.elsevier.com/locate/forsciint

Application of atomic absorption spectroscopy for detection

of multimetal traces in low-voltage electrical marks
Marija Jakubeniene *, Algirdas Zakaras,
Zita Nijole Minkuviene, Alvydas Benoshys
Institute of Forensic Medicine, Mykolas Romeris University, S. Zukausko 12, Vilnius LT-08234, Lithuania
Received 30 May 2005; received in revised form 24 October 2005; accepted 24 October 2005
Available online 28 November 2005

Abstract

Application of atomic absorption spectroscopy to detect multimetal traces in injured skin is a promising tool for investigation
of fatalities caused by electrocution. The present paper is aimed at testing the reliability of this method for metal traces detection
in electric current marks and is focused on study of peculiarities of metal penetration into the skin exposed to a current impact.
Bare aluminum wire, tin–lead coated copper multistrand wire, and zinc-plated steel rope were used to make electrical marks on
pig skin. It is demonstrated that amount of copper, zinc, lead, and iron may serve as statistically reliable indicators for the type of
wire, which caused the electrical mark, in spite of the background content of these metals in the skin without injury. Different
penetration rates for different metals contained in the wire inflicting an electrical mark were observed.
# 2005 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Forensic medicine; Electrocution; Atomic absorption spectroscopy; Metal traces

1. Introduction [11,12] and, consequently, predominate in forensic medicine

Investigation of fatal electrocution cases is often
obscured by lack of specific morphological characteristics
[1–3]. The diagnostics of fatal electrical traumas by autopsy
is usually based on detection of typical electrical marks on
the body surface [4–6]. This is of especial importance in the
investigation of cases with unclear death circumstances, in
diagnostics of the causes of sudden deaths, and in the
differential diagnostics of fatal traumas at home and in
industry. As known from medico-legal practice, 14–40%
of mortal electrocutions are caused by high-voltage injuries
[7–10]. Though being seemingly less dangerous, low-vol-
tage injuries total 50–88% of all fatalities by electrocution
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +370 5 2788513;
fax: +370 5 2789047.
E-mail address: marija.jakubeniene@gmail.com
(M. Jakubeniene).
practice. It is worth noting that the current electric mark in
the case of low-voltage lethal electric injury might be absent
or inconspicuous and remain undetected during the scene
examination [3,13]. Determination of metal traces in such
suspected electrical marks can be used to confirm the contact
with metallic electrode and, possibly, to reveal the source of
the fatal electrocution [6,14,15]. Up to now, the study of
metal traces in current marks was focused mostly on qua-
litative characteristics, i.e. on determination of composition
of the metal traces [16,17], while quantitative characteriza-
tion of metal traces deposited into the skin during the electric
injury is still scarcely studied [18,19]. Meanwhile, the
quantitative study of metals in the electrical injuries could
be of essential help for analysis of circumstances of elec-
trical fatalities, especially in cases when multi-elemental
composition of the metal traces can be determined. There are
a few metals, such as copper, aluminum, iron, zinc, and lead
which are commonly used for production of electrical wires

0379-0738/$ – see front matter # 2005 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.forsciint.2005.10.019
 M. Jakubeniene et al. / Forensic Science International 161 (2006) 36–40
or deposition of their plating. However, most of these
elements are present in the human skin [20], and this natural
background can influence the results of metal trace analysis
in the electrical marks.
This study is aimed at investigation of the influence of the
background skin metal content on reliability of determina-
tion of metal traces in electrical marks under impact of low-
voltage current and at revealing peculiarities of the deposi-
tion of the metals in electrical marks caused by contact with
different conductors. We applied atomic absorption spectro-
scopy to detect copper, lead, zinc, and iron, tested the
reliability of the detection in view of natural background
of the metals in the skin, and studied peculiarities of
penetration of the metals into the skin during the low-voltage
electric current impact.
2. Materials and methods
The flame atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) was
used to study the metal traces. The validity of the determina-
tion has been verified on the basis of 10 test measurements.
Response linearity in the AAS measurements was verified
for concentration ranges used in experiments, and correla-
tion coefficients were found to be 0.99978, 0.99946,
0.99968, and 0.9999 for Cu, Zn, Fe, and Pb, respectively.
The detection limit was estimated to be 0.013 mg/l for Cu,
0.008 mg/l for Zn, 0.035 mg/l for Fe, and 0.060 mg/l for Pb.
The accuracy of the method was tested using the spike
recovery approach. The recovery was obtained in the range
from 98.2 to 101.4% for Cu, from 98.9 to 100.9% for Zn,
from 98.4 to 102.5% for Fe, and from 94.5 to 106.2% for Pb.
The relative standard deviation for day-to-day fluctuations of
the measurements was found to be 1.8% for Cu, 1.5% for Zn,
2.4% for Fe, and 7.5% for Pb.
The electrocution experiments were performed by
applying the alternating electric current at the voltage of
220 V for duration of 2, 5, 7, 10, and 12 s to scalded pig
skin. The bare solid aluminum wire, tin–lead plated copper
multi-strand wire and zinc-plated steel rope were used to
make electrical marks. The diameter of all the electrodes
was 1 mm, and length of the contact to the skin was
maintained at approximately 8 mm. To determine the
amount of the metals under study in the wires used,
samples of the wires were dissolved in concentrated nitric
acid, and the ASS analysis was performed. The amounts of
copper, lead, zinc, and iron in the wires used in our
experiments are presented in Table 1.
The metal depositions from skin samples with electrical
marks were extracted into 5% nitric acid solution. To
evaluate the background level of metals in the pig skin,
control samples of the skin, which were cut from vicinity of
the intended injury before the current impact, were also
investigated. To increase the accuracy of the analysis, three
skin cuts for each duration impact have been studied. More-
over, every analysis of the skin cut extract has been repeated
37
Table 1
Amounts of copper, lead, zinc, and iron in wires used in experiments
Wire no. Wire type Relative amount
of metals (%)
Cu Pb Zn Fe
1 Bare aluminum wire 1.5 ND ND ND
2 Tin–lead plated 98.5 1.5 ND ND
copper wire
3 Zinc-plated steel rope ND ND 3 97
ND stands for content not detected within the sensitivity limits of the
method used.
three times. The data presented in the figures are the mean
values with 95% confidence intervals indicated as error bars.
In principle, the content of metals in the extract of the skin
with electrical mark might be influenced both by deposition of
metals from the wire and by altered extraction efficiency from
the skin affected by electrocution. To test the origins of the
metal traces in the extract, we studied electrical marks
inflicted by bare solid aluminum wire containing traces of
copper but no detectable amounts of zinc and iron. The
nonparametric Mann–Whitney U-test for content of Cu,
Zn, and Fe was applied to compare the set of samples with
electrical marks with the set of uninjured control skin cuts.
Difference in metal content was considered to be statistically
significant, if the corresponding p-value was less than 0.05.
3. Results
To test the reliability of the AAS measurements, we
started our study with experiments on metal detection in
electrical marks inflicted by aluminium wire (wire no. 1; see
the wire characteristics in Table 1). The wire contained 1.5%
of copper, while zinc and iron content in the wire was
negligible. Thus, penetration of copper from the wire into
the skin might be expected, while zinc and iron content in the
electrical mark should correspond to the natural content of
these metals in the skin. We studied skin samples affected by
current impact with different duration ranging from 2 to 12 s.
Fig. 1 presents the content of iron, zinc, and copper in
extracts from the skin samples measured using the AAS
method. Control samples of unaffected skin were also
studied. Analysis of the data for zinc and iron using the
Mann–Whitney U-criteria revealed that there is no statisti-
cally significant difference between absorbances of the
extracts of the electrical marks and the control samples,
since the differences of zinc and iron amounts obtained in the
control skin samples and samples with the electrical marks
correspond to the p-parameter exceeding 0.05. Meanwhile,
the statistical analysis of the copper detection data evidenced
that the copper content in the electrical marks is significantly
different from the copper background content in the control
skin cuts ( p < 0.01). The copper content in electrical marks
increased with the duration of the electrical current impact.
38 M. Jakubeniene et al. / Forensic Science International 161 (2006) 36–40

Fig. 1. Current impact duration dependence of absorbance for iron (a), zinc (b), and copper (c) in extracts from skin cuts with electrical marks
(squares). The absorbance values of control skin cuts are presented by dots in parallel with the corresponding values for electrical marks.

The test results are in fair consistence with the metal traces
expected in the skin affected by current in the aluminum wire
with 1.5% of copper. Thus, these results led us to conclusion
that the source of copper traces in the electrical marks was
definitely the wire.
Furthermore, we applied the AAS-based technique to
study peculiarities of penetration of different metals into the
skin during the electrical impact. Two typical plated wires
were selected for our experiments: a tin–lead plated copper
wire (wire no. 2 in Table 1) and zinc-plated steel rope (wire
no. 3 in Table 1).
Content of copper and lead in the electrical mark on the
pig skin as a function of current impact duration for the wire
no. 2 is plotted in Fig. 2a. We observe a different rate of
penetration for copper and lead. For short current impacts,
the content of lead is higher than that of copper, however, the
copper content increases with increasing current impact
duration faster than the lead content does. This feature is
highlighted in Fig. 2b, where the relative content of the
copper and lead traces is plotted against the current impact
duration. For the impact duration of 2 s, the metal trace in
electrical mark is dominated by lead (67%) deposited from
the wire plating, while the content of copper (the wire core
metal) was twice as low (33%). Exposition of the skin to
current impact for approximately 6 s resulted in equal
amounts of copper and lead, while longer expositions
resulted in dominance of copper over lead in the current
marks (e.g. 63% against 37% at 12 s duration).
The current impact duration dependence of zinc and iron
content in the cuts of skin affected by current in zinc-plated
steel rope (wire no. 3 in Table 1) is presented in Fig. 3a. The
traces of metals deposited in these current marks are domi-
nated by zinc. Increase of the current impact duration from 2
to 12 s resulted in an increase of the mean amount of zinc in
the electrical marks from 30 to 220 mg. Meanwhile, the
mean amount of iron in the electrical marks increased from
0.3 to 2.8 mg. Thus, the metal traces inflicted by zinc-plated
steel rope are dominated by the plating metal. Moreover, in
contrast to the case of tin–lead plated copper wire discussed
above, both zinc and iron penetrate the skin from the zinc-
plated steel rope at approximately the same rate (see
dynamics of the relative amounts of Zn and Fe in

Fig. 2. Electrical current duration dependence of absolute (a) and relative (b) amount of copper (squares) and lead (dots) in the electrical marks
imposed by tin–lead plated copper wire.
 M. Jakubeniene et al. / Forensic Science International 161 (2006) 36–40
Fig. 3. Electrical current duration dependence of absolute (a) and relative (b) amount of iron (dots) and zinc (squares) in the electrical marks
imposed by zinc-plated stele rope. Note different scales for Zn and Fe values.
Fig. 3b). The relative amount of zinc was practically inde-
pendent of the duration of the electrical current impact and
totaled to about 99% for all current impact durations applied.
4. Discussion
Since morphological features of an injury may fail to
indicate the electric current impact as the origin of the fatal
electrocution, spectroscopic detection of metal traces is an
indispensable source of information for forensic investiga-
tion [6,14]. However, the reliability of data obtained by
measuring the metal content in electrical marks has always
been the key issue under discussion [16,19,21]. Moreover,
the electric injury is often followed by skin burns [22,23],
which might influence the background metal content. Our
results with the aluminum wire containing traces of copper
provide evidence that low-voltage electric current does not
introduce any changes in content of background traces of
zinc and iron, which are naturally contained in the skin.
Meanwhile, the copper traces detected in the current mark
originate from the conductor causing the electrical injury.
Analysis of metal traces in forensic autopsy material
showed that majority of the electrical marks contains multi-
elemental metals traces [24]. Thus, the relative content of the
metals might provide additional information on the fatal
electric injury. Our experiments with electrical marks
inflicted by current in plated conductors (wires nos. 2 and
3) revealed the current impact duration dependence of the
amount of the metals deposited into the skin. Different
penetration rates for different metals were observed. Con-
sequently, the ratio of contents of certain metals (Cu and Pb
in our study) in the electric mark depends not only on the
composition of the wire causing the injury, but also on the
duration of the current impact. This aspect should be taken
into account in identification of the type of the wire inflicting
the fatal injury. On the other hand, the metal ratio can be
39
exploited to estimate the duration of the current impact
provided that the type of the wire is known.
Meanwhile, in the electric marks inflicted by other types
of electric conductors (zinc-plated steel rope in our study),
the plating and core metals are deposited at approximately
the same rate, and the relative content of the metals is
insensitive to the current impact duration. Thus, the ratio
can by used for identification of the wire type irrespective of
the current impact duration. Extension of our study for a
broader variety of common wire types could create a data-
base to be used as a reference for study of metal traces in
electric marks in forensic practice.
In conclusion, we demonstrated that the background
traces of metals naturally contained in the skin are not
significantly affected by current causing electric injuries
and do not interfere in determination of external metal
deposition into the electric marks from the wire inflicting
the fatal injury. The ratio of different metals in multi-
elemental metal traces in electric marks is shown to be
dependent on the current impact duration for certain wire
types. This should be taken into account in identification of
the conductor causing the fatal injury as well as can be
exploited as a source of additional information on the
circumstances of a fatal accident. Detection of metal traces
in electric marks using atomic absorption spectroscopy is a
reliably technique to study external metal deposition during
the current impact. After gaining more comprehensive
experimental data on dynamics of the metal penetration
from the wire to the skin, this technique could become a
useful tool in forensic practice.
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