Njp. Paulsson et F. Winquist, Analysis of breath alcohol with a multisensor array: instrumental setup, characterization and evaluation, FOREN SCI I, 105(2), 1999, pp. 95-114
The purpose of this work was to evaluate if it was possible to measure the
alcohol concentration in breath by a multisensor array, i.e. an electronic
nose. The most important aspects were to clarify technical advantages and d
isadvantages and if the technique is at all suitable for forensic breath al
cohol analysis. Even though the system set-up was far from optimal it is cl
ear that it was possible to quantify breath alcohol with a best-case root m
ean square error=16.8 mol ppm ethanol (=0.037 mg/l). However, the method ne
eds significant development especially of the sensor devices. The sensor ar
ray was composed of ten metal oxide silicon field effect transistors (MOSFE
T) with various catalytic gates and one infrared-based CO, sensor. The syst
em was evaluated by monitoring the breath ethanol concentration of five tes
t persons after intake of alcohol. Gas chromatography was used in parallel
to measure the actual breath alcohol concentration. Different data evaluati
on techniques applied were;projection to latent structure (PLS) and artific
ial neural networks (ANN). (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All right
s reserved.