From Oil to Odors: Expanding SPME’s Role in Forensic Investigations

At the Global Forensic and Justice Center, Kenneth G. Furton, Ph.D., who is a provost, executive vice president, chief operating officer, and professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Florida International University, is conducting research in detection technologies and environmental forensics (1,2). His work, and the work of other researchers at the Global Forensic and Justice Center, helps advance education, training, research, technology transfer, and policy initiatives spanning criminal, computer, nuclear, and environmental forensics (2).

As part of our “From Sample to Verdict” series, LCGC International sat down with Furton to discuss 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. In Part II of our conversation with Furton, he discusses the applicability of SPME in other forensic applications, as well as the limitations of using SPME.

Will Wetzel, Senior Editor, LCGC International: What makes solid-phase microextraction (SPME) particularly well-suited for forensic applications compared to more conventional sample preparation techniques?

Ken Furton: Yeah, so solid based micro extraction has many advantages. I've actually been using it. I've been a professor of chemistry biochemistry for over 30 years here at FIU, and I've used it in a myriad of different applications, because especially for forensic applications, because it's portable, so you can deploy it in the field and sample and then test it later, as long as you're not seeing too much loss of sample or the delay time Between sampling in the field and doing the analysis, but you could have a portable GC–MS instrument on site, and then that wouldn't be an issue. It's also very fast, and it's also very sensitive. Which sensitivity is probably the most important feature for doing trace samples in the for forensic investigations, for example, I do a lot of work with human scent differentiation, and we tried many, many different methods of just doing traditional thermal desorption of with sorption tubes.

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).