Discrimination of black ballpoint pen inks by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)

In this study, thirteen types of black ballpoint pen inks of three major brands were analyzed using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Separation of the ink components was achieved using Bondapak C-18 column with gradient elution using water, ethanol and ethyl acetate. The chromatographic data obtained at wavelength 254.8nm was analyzed using agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC) and principle component analysis (PCA). AHC was able to group the inks into three clusters. This result was supported by PCA, whereby distinct separation of the three different brands was achieved. Therefore, HPLC in combination with chemometric methods may be a valuable tool for the analysis of black ballpoint pen inks for forensic purposes