Disposable cartridge transdermal ethanol sensors

Project Summary Signi cance A consumer grade blood alcohol sensor has the potential to improve awareness of physiology of alcohol metabolism and reduce the incidence of alcohol related fatalities by helping individuals make safer more educated decisions regarding alcohol consumption Existing technologies such as personal breathalyzers require users to breathe into them and thereby rely on impaired individuals to remember to perform a measurement to gather their blood alcohol concentration readings Existing alcohol monitoring technology such as WrisTAS and ankle bracelets such as SCRAM have been inadequate for consumers due to their bulkiness high cost and fouling Our hypothesis Reliable blood alcohol concentration data for consumer applications can be achieved by means of disposable liquid phase enzymatic sensor cartridges that measures transdermal alcohol concentration Preliminary Data In this proposal ethanol detection through the skin is demonstrated with a cartridge based disposable ethanol sensor and associated electronics that transmit data to a smartphone with a response time of two hours and a cartridge shelf life of one week at room temperature Speci c Aims This project entails improving the response time of the existing sensor to timescales less than one hour increasing the shelf life of the disposable cartridges to greater than six months and verifying temperature stability of the sensor and integrated electronics in the range of to This proposal aims to develop sensing technology to enable a real time blood alcohol concentration BAC sensor for consumers A consumer BAC sensor will empower people to make safe educated decisions regarding their alcohol consumption This technology will directly improve public health and potentially reduce the incidence of alcohol related fatalities