Citation

Williams PM, Jones TP. Proc. Int. Counc. Alcohol Drugs Traffic Safety Conf. 1981; 1981: 663-676.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1981, The author(s) and the Council, Publisher International Council on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

A system is described for the field collection and storage of a subject's breath alcohol for subsequent laboratory analysis. The device consists of a glass tube packed with silica gel to adsorb the alcohol as the breath passes through into a measuring bag (1 litre). For the analysis, the gel is transferred to a glass flask (0.2 dl), treated with desorbent solution, equilibrated at 47 deg C and analysed by a head-space method using a lion alcolmeter ae-d1. The display shows the breath or blood alcohol concentration directly, calibration being effected using a synebriate or nalco vapour standard. In vitro studies to date have shown the method to be linear up to 500 mg per cent BAC and the tubes to be stable for at least three months when stored at ambient temperatures. In vivo studies have shown that a subject's BAC can generally be determined to within 6 mg per cent at least three months after the original breath sampling. It is hoped to incorporate the system into the new lion auto-alcolmeter evidential breath alcohol analyser. This will provide two stored breath samples per subject, thereby overcoming one of the commonly cited limitations of such instruments. (TRRL)