Alcohol in breath and blood: a selected ion flow tube mass spectrometric study

In this paper we compare the amounts of ethanol in breath and in blood after ingestion of whisky using analysis by selected ion flow tube mass spectrometry (SIFT‐MS). Blood ethanol concentrations were also obtained using standard hospital forensic procedures for blood alcohol analyses. We demonstrate the quantitative nature of SIFT‐MS analysis by correlating the observed alcohol content of the headspace above 5‐mL amounts of venous blood and aqueous solution to which known trace amounts of alcohol have been added. This procedure provides a Henry's Law coefficient for ethanol in aqueous solution at 298 ± 3 K of 209 ± 7 mol/kg*bar. We also demonstrate that measurement of the ethanol concentration in the alveolar portion of a single breath using the SIFT‐MS technique gives an accurate measure of blood alcohol and could obviate the need for blood samples in forensic processing. The storage performance of breath samples in Mylar bags with a volume greater than 1 L has been shown to maintain the mixture integrity for ethanol but not for some other species. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.