INVESTIGATING THE ALCOHOL BREATH TESTER CALIBRATION USING ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES

Driving while intoxicated has been one of the most serious social problems in the United States. To prevent this situation, law authorities have strengthened the driver’s blood alcohol tests randomly while they drive. Along with the law enforcement, the importance of testing device’s precise performance has been highlighted because malfunction of the device may affect the driver’s license and credibility. For many reasons, there's the possibility of a malfunction in the machine, so the blood alcohol testers should calibrate periodically to prevent the errors of the devices. For calibrating the testers, users should mail it back to the factory, or order a calibration unit and standard solutions, which have been a hectic task. Here, in this study, a novel model has been introduced for easy calibration of the alcohol detecting device. The possibility of calibrating their breath testers has been examined using commercially available beverages such as vodka, gin, wine, and beer in order to substitute the calibration standard solutions which users may get with the limited availability. This novel method of calibration allows people to calibrate the devices with more user-friendly method. This type of calibration system was not designed to replace more rigorous calibrations, but it could be a quick and easy estimation on the functionality of the devices. The result suggested that the relation of the vapor alcohol concentration and dilution factors were highly linear with reasonable sensitivity in all beverages tested, and there found no statistical difference in vapor alcohol concentration in the same solution using two different devices and in the different alcoholic beverages of the same brand purchased from different stores, respectively.