APPLICATION OF THE PHOTOIONIZATION DETECTOR FOR THE DETERMINATION OF ETHANOL IN AQUEOUS-SOLUTIONS AND HUMAN BREATH

A determination of ethanol is described, which is based on a purging s ystem in conjunction with a photoionization detector. With that system a fast and reliable determination of ethanol in aqueous solutions is possible. The system has been used for the analysis of wine. The 3 del ta-detection limit has been 0.005% ethanol, the relative standard devi ation 4.8 to 6.0% and the time constant of the entire analytical syste m 20 s. The photoionization detector has been also applied to the anal ysis of artificial and genuine human breath. A comparison with gas-chr omatography and non-dispersive IR-detection has been proven the reliab ility of results.