Fingerprinting Crude Oil with SPME-GC–MS: Insights from Ken Furton

Kenneth G. Furton, Ph.D., is provost, executive vice president, chief operating officer, and professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Florida International University. He is widely recognized for his innovations in detection technologies, particularly human scent identification, holding eight U.S. patents with more pending (1). Furton has authored or co-authored more than 800 scholarly works, secured more than $13 million in research funding, and is a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors and the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) (1). He is also a distinguished professor in the Global Forensic and Justice Center, which brings together four programs to advance expertise in forensic science, services, and justice administration (2). It serves as a multidisciplinary hub for education, training, research, technology transfer, and policy initiatives spanning criminal, computer, nuclear, and environmental forensics (2).

As part of “From Sample to Verdict,” LCGC International sat down with Furton to talk about his team’s work in the Global Forensic and Justice Center. In Part I of our conversation with Furton, he discusses his work in environmental forensics, including applying solid-phase microextraction (SPME-GC–MS) in distinguishing crude oil sources.

Will Wetzel, Senior Editor, LCGC International: What advantages does solid phase microextraction coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (SPME-GC-MS) offer in distinguishing crude oil sources compared to traditional analytical methods used in environmental forensics?

Furton: SPME-GC–MS has a number of advantages. Most traditional methods for crude oils have involved techniques like liquid–liquid extraction (LLE) using something like hexane, and what happens is you wind up extracting a lot of interfering compounds. It's pretty indiscriminate,whereas when you use something speedy. Most of the speedy fibers have a non-polar backbone, and that's very good for these petroleum compounds, which are mainly volatile or semi-volatile compounds that you'll see in the headspace. And so, you wind up gettinga more rapid technique, and you'll get a cleaner sample in terms of not getting interfering compounds that you don't really want to look at, because you ultimately want to have a pattern of compounds that you can find a signature for, hopefully to fingerprint a source.

You can watch the full video interview below.

References

1. Florida International University, Kenneth Furton. FIU.edu. Available at: https://discovery.fiu.edu/display/person-furtonkenneth-g (accessed 2025-08-29).
2. Florida International University, Global Forensic Justice Center. FIU.edu. Available at: https://discovery.fiu.edu/display/org-202063000 (accessed 2025-08-29).