Rapid communications in mass spectrometry : RCM
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Rapid Commun. Mass Spectrom. · Apr 2010
Kinetics of ethanol decay in mouth- and nose-exhaled breath measured on-line by selected ion flow tube mass spectrometry following varying doses of alcohol.
A study has been carried out of the decay of ethanol in mouth-exhaled and nose-exhaled breath of two healthy volunteers following the ingestion of various doses of alcohol at different dilutions in water. Concurrent analyses of sequential single breath exhalations from the two volunteers were carried out using selected ion flow tube mass spectrometry, SIFT-MS, on-line and in real time continuously over some 200 min following each alcohol dose by simply switching sampling between the two volunteers. Thus, the time interval between breath exhalations was only a few minutes, and this results in well-defined decay curves. ⋯ Acetaldehyde, the primary product of ethanol metabolism, is seen to track the breath ethanol. Acetic acid, a possible secondary product of this metabolism, was detected in the exhaled breath, but was shown to largely originate in the oral cavity. Breath acetone was seen to increase over the long period of measurement due to the depletion of nutrients.