Medical Design and Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • Med Tech Resources
    • Subscribe to Print Magazine
    • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • The Big 100
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Video
  • 2022 Leadership in MedTech
    • 2022 Leadership Voting!
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
  • Women in Medtech

A Better Breathalyzer

October 9, 2013 By The Optical Society

Gel-filled gemstones make new reusable, color-changing tool for detecting alcohol vapor concentration

The opal-based alcohol sensor is green before use but turns redder in the presence of alcohol vapor. (Credit: Riccardo Pernice, Università degli Studi di Palermo)To gauge whether suspects involved in accidents or routine traffic stops have been driving drunk, police officers pair field sobriety tests with breathalyzers, which signal the presence of alcohol in the breath. Most breathalyzers are expensive and unable to test for precise concentrations of alcohol. Offering a better solution, Italian researchers have developed a novel idea for an inexpensive, portable breathalyzer whose color would change from green to red with higher alcohol concentrations. But unlike current color change-based devices, this sensor would be reusable and could also provide a precise digital readout.

The new design is the first to use the sensing properties of opals, a type of gemstone, to detect the gas version of ethanol, the intoxicating component of commercial liquor, by inducing a change in color that is visible to the human eye. The research team describes their new method in a proof-of-concept paper published today in The Optical Society’s (OSA) journal Optical Materials Express.

The opal-based alcohol sensor is green before use but turns redder in the presence of alcohol vapor. (Credit: Riccardo Pernice, Università degli Studi di Palermo)The portable breathalyzers preferred by roadside police use expensive electronic readouts, but these devices lack the “immediate and intuitive” color change that tells police whether the alcohol content of a suspect’s breath puts them in the legal red zone, said first author Riccardo Pernice of the Università degli Studi di Palermo in Italy. Techniques that do use color change to assess the level of alcohol concentration are typically less expensive, but they cannot give a precise reading of the alcohol concentration and most are use-once-and-toss. Pernice said his team’s proposed device combines the best elements of each of these two breathalyzer models.

“Our approach enables an optical, naked-eye detection as a color change from green to red, like litmus paper,” Pernice said. “But it also potentially permits accurate quantitative measurements” with the addition of an electronic system or a color detector.

The method is inspired by the natural behavior of opals, gemstones whose iridescence illustrates their ability to manipulate light. Scientists use manufactured versions of opals and other photonic crystals to detect acidity or the presence of liquid ethanol, but until now little attention has been paid by researchers to detecting gaseous ethanol, the researchers said.

This is a closeup of the surface of the opal, taken with a scanning electron microscope. The ethanol-responsive gel used in the device would fill the spaces between the rows of regularly spaced nanoparticles that comprise the opal. (Credit: Riccardo Pernice, Università degli Studi di Palermo)In their new setup, the researchers created sheets of manufactured opal about one centimeter square and just a few hundred billionths of a meter thick, as thin as some of the films on soap bubbles. The opals are pumped full of a gel tuned to respond to ethanol vapor. At increasing ethanol concentrations, the gel swells, changing the way light travels through the gel-filled opal and causing the sample to become red.

The change in color is clearly visible to the naked eye, Pernice said and the device is usable multiple times. After performing the measurements, researchers found that the sample gradually regained its original green color after less than one minute of exposure in air. He added that the sensor does not pose environmental concerns for disposal after use, since it is made of all non-toxic materials, and that it also does not react to acetone, one of the many substances that can be falsely identified as ethanol by some breath machines.

The device is currently able to detect alcohol at much higher concentrations compared to other portable alcohol sensors. In the coming months, the researchers hope to explore the device’s use at lower concentrations as well.

Related Articles Read More >

A portrait of Ellen Roche, MIT School of Engineering associate professor
New implant design prevents scar tissue without drugs, MIT says
UMN artificial blood vessel clinical trial
Minnesota researchers awarded $3.7M grant for artificial, bioengineered blood vessel clinical trial
CeQur Simplicity
CeQur is launching a discreet, convenient ‘wearable insulin pen’
Blackrock's Utah array is a miniature array of electrodes for sensing brain signals
Blackrock Neurotech and Pitt work on first at-home BCI system for remote trials

DeviceTalks Weekly.

August 5, 2022
DTW Medtronic's Greg Smith lays out supply chain strategies
See More >

MDO Digital Edition

Digital Edition

Subscribe to Medical Design & Outsourcing. Bookmark, share and interact with the leading medical design engineering magazine today.

MEDTECH 100 INDEX

Medtech 100 logo
Market Summary > Current Price
The MedTech 100 is a financial index calculated using the BIG100 companies covered in Medical Design and Outsourcing.
DeviceTalks

DeviceTalks is a conversation among medical technology leaders. It's events, podcasts, webinars and one-on-one exchanges of ideas & insights.

DeviceTalks

New MedTech Resource

Medical Tubing

Enewsletter Subscriptions

Enewsletter Subscriptions

MassDevice

Mass Device

The Medical Device Business Journal. MassDevice is the leading medical device news business journal telling the stories of the devices that save lives.

Visit Website
MDO ad
Medical Design and Outsourcing
  • MassDevice
  • DeviceTalks
  • MedTech100 Index
  • Medical Tubing + Extrusion
  • Medical Design Sourcing
  • Drug Delivery Business News
  • Drug Discovery & Development
  • Pharmaceutical Processing World
  • R&D World
  • About Us/Contact
  • Advertise With Us
  • Subscribe to Print Magazine
  • Subscribe to E-newsletter
  • Attend our Monthly Webinars
  • Listen to our Weekly Podcasts
  • Join our DeviceTalks Tuesdays Discussion

Copyright © 2022 WTWH Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media LLC. Site Map | Privacy Policy | RSS

Search Medical Design & Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • Med Tech Resources
    • Subscribe to Print Magazine
    • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • The Big 100
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Video
  • 2022 Leadership in MedTech
    • 2022 Leadership Voting!
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
  • Women in Medtech