If you visited Hillsdale’s shooting range this summer, you may have seen chemistry students hopping around with trash cans, trying to catch ejected bullets before the hot metal hit the ground.
Once a bullet touches the ground, it’s easily contaminated — and senior chemistry major Joe Banovetz can’t use any contaminated evidence in his senior research project.
The Wisconsin native and firearms enthusiast turned his amateur interest for explosives and forensics into a senior thesis and six-week summer research project. He’s using what scientists call “spectral analysis” — a method of analyzing matter based on its properties — to develop a technique that can distinguish various brands of gunpowder and maybe even contribute to detecting crime.
“The goal is to develop a cheap and fast method to be able to identify the brand of gunpowder in question for forensic purposes,” Banovetz said. “If you could somehow match the gunpowder sample to its manufacturer, then you could match a shell casing from a crime scene to a particular brand of ammunition that might be owned by a suspect.”
Before going to the shooting range, Banovetz analyzed different brands of gunpowder in a lab, opening up unfired cartridges and jotting down observations about the powder. Then, he brought a couple chemistry friends to the shooting range to collect samples of fired gunpowder.
“That involved going out to the gun range, standing behind Joe with a trash can, and catching bullet casings out of the air,” senior chemistry major Yancey Courtney, a student who helped Banovetz collect samples, said. “There’s been nothing like that done here before — he came up with it by himself. It shows how much you can do with chemistry. Generally people think of science majors as going into medicine, but there’s actually a variety of way you can get involved with chemistry.”
After returning to the lab with a large sample of fired casings, Banovetz separated the powder into different components by using a technique that produced a liquid residue. Once he had the liquid residue from the casings, Banovetz ran it through two instruments that gave him qualitative and quantitative data: what’s there, and how much is it?
Banovetz said his research proves there are significant differences between various brands of gunpowder, and in theory his research could be practically applied to forensics. Even though he already has enough data to write his thesis, Banovetz plans to continue collecting research samples so the project can be published.
Professor of Chemistry Mark Nussbaum is Banovetz’s senior thesis adviser.
“While it may be preliminary, it’s the type of work that should eventually be publishable and helpful to others in the field,” Nussbaum said in an email. “Joe has done an excellent job in developing his own research project and in carrying it out.”
Banovetz said he hopes to continue pursuing his interest in analytical chemistry as a student at graduate school, and later as a career chemist. He’s giving a presentation of his research at a chemistry seminar at noon on Oct. 14 in Strosacker 300.
