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Ethanol/water solutions as certified reference materials for breath alcohol analyzer calibration

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Abstract

The Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM), Germany, has issued a series of large volume ethanol in water certified reference materials (CRMs), primarily developed for the calibration of evidential breath alcohol analyzers in Germany. The certified parameter is the ethanol mass concentration at 20 °C. When used in a wet bath simulator, the solutions deliver gas samples that meet the requirements set by the Organization of Legal Metrology for calibration of breathalyzers. The materials were prepared gravimetrically by spiking of ethanol into water in single 5 L units. A complete uncertainty budget for the preparation process has been established. The purity of the commercial ethanol stock solution was identified to be the main source of uncertainty. For stability and homogeneity measurements and for the verification of the gravimetric mass concentration of the CRMs, a robust high-precision gas chromatography, with flame-ionization detection method for ethanol determination in aqueous samples was developed and validated. The good performance of this method has been demonstrated in several international comparisons organized by the Consultative Committee for Amount of Substance—Metrology in Chemistry at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the work of Mr R. Rothe in preparation of the ethanol/water reference materials and numerous accurate GC-FID measurements.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department I, “Analytical Chemistry, Reference Materials”, BAM-Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing, Richard-Willstaetter-Street 11, 12489, Berlin, Germany

    Rosemarie Philipp, Olaf Hanebeck, Sebastian Hein, Wolfram Bremser, Tin Win & Irene Nehls

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  1. Rosemarie Philipp
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  2. Olaf Hanebeck
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  3. Sebastian Hein
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  4. Wolfram Bremser
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  5. Tin Win
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  6. Irene Nehls
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Correspondence to Rosemarie Philipp.

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Philipp, R., Hanebeck, O., Hein, S. et al. Ethanol/water solutions as certified reference materials for breath alcohol analyzer calibration. Accred Qual Assur 15, 141–146 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00769-009-0605-9

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