The unicity, permanency, and generality of fingerprints make them as a reliable identification feature in crime and civil cases all over the globe. Various methods are available for the detection of latent fingerprint. Of them, powder dusting is a simplest and most commonly used procedure. Although several powders has been demonstrated earlier
as visualization agents of latent fingerprints, in some context, they are expensive, toxic, and are not easily accessible as they usually composed of various materials. In this study, we have introduced neutral alumina, commonly used in thin layer chromatography as a stationary phase, as a new fingerprint visualizing agent. Neutral alumina is a
cheap, easily available and accessible (one of the most common laboratory consumables), non-toxic, convenient material. In this study, the effectiveness of alumina as a fingerprint powder has been demonstrated on sixteen various substrates of different properties. The results revealed that the alumina powder can be used as an efficient
alternative for other costly commercial powders. The alumina-developed friction ridges were also viewed with the aid of confocal laser scanning microscope and the results are discussed in this article. The alumina-developed fingerprint offers the possibility of extracting level 2 and level 3 features too. Context: The main objective of this work is to identify cheap, non-toxic, and easily accessible material for fingerprint detection as efficient alternative to costly and toxic commercial fingerprint powders. Aims: The aim of this work is to explore the efficiency of
neutral alumina as a cheap and non-toxic fingerprint powder particularly in the scarcity of commercial powders. Results: Sixteen substrates with varying surface, color, and nature were chosen to deposit the fingerprints and their efficiency of development on the application of neutral alumina powder was explored. Most of the aluminadeveloped substrates were showed excellent contrast and visibility. Conclusions: The neutral alumina powder can be an effective and inexpensive substitute for other commonly used fingerprint powders particularly in the case of shortage.

Keywords: Powder dusting; Confocal laser scanning microscopy; Sweat pores; Ridge density; Minutiae; Ridge spacing.