Fingerprint powder

A powdered polycyanoacrylate polymer produced by a process comprising:

• (a) charging a reaction vessel with a mist comprising water;
• (b) dripping methyl or ethyl 2-cyanoacrylate into the water mist in the reaction vessel, thereby producing an exothermic reaction, thereby conducting uniform polymerization of said methyl or ethyl 2-cyanoacrate, and temporarily halting or decreasing a rate of addition of methyl or ethyl 2-cyanoacrylate if the temperature in the reaction vessel becomes too high for uniform polymerization;
• (c) once polymerization of the methyl or ethyl 2-cyanoacrylate is complete, allowing the reaction mass to cool;
• (d) removing polycyanoacrylate polymer formed in step (b) and cooled in step (c) from the reaction vessel;
• (e) drying the polycyanoacrylate polymer to provide a dry solid polycyanoacrylate polymer;
• and
• (f) pulverizing the dry solid into a powder, wherein more than 95% of the particle mass in said powder comprises particles having a particle diameter in the range of from 1 to 200 microns, or wherein the particles in said powder have one or more of the following particle size characteristics (i), (ii), and (iii):
• (i) at least 50 weight-% of the powder particles have a feret length of from 20 to 80 nanometers;
• (ii) at least 50 weight-% of the powder particles have a feret width of from 10 to 40 nanometers;
• (iii) at least 50 weight-% of the powder particles have a rectangularity ranging from 60 to 75.