How Can a Breathalyzer Measure Blood Alcohol?
The blood releases alcohol through the breath. When you drink alcohol, the body absorbs it quite literally. It saturates tissue lining in the mouth, throat, stomach and intestines, and enters the bloodstream. When that blood circulates through the lungs, alcohol evaporates out through air sacs in the lungs. A breathalyzer measures the alcohol in the breath that is exhaled. There’s a mathematical relationship between alcohol blood level and alcohol breath level. It was determined that the alcohol measured in the breath can tell you something about the overall alcohol content in the bloodstream. A “universal” relationship was determined between the two levels alcohol concentrations (despite the fact that each person is unique). The golden rule of breath testing says: Every 2,100 ml of air in the lungs (breath to be exhaled) will contain the same amount of alcohol concentration as 1 ml of blood. A device that can measure alcohol in the breath, can then estimate alcohol in the blood. Breat
