Experimental investigation of chemical approach to ethanol detection

Abstract

Different methodologies of detection of ethanol from the expired breath (BrAC),which could give an indication of the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) have been applied in various commercially available devices for screening of drivers suspected to be drunk. In this project, the purpose is to find a cheap and fast way of detection of breath alcohol for development of a commercial device, and the chemical method of detection of alcohol was studied in detail, involving potassium dichromate, sulphuric acid and silver nitrate. The individual role and functional importance of each chemical was determined and figured out from a series of experiments.