ALCOHOL

And Its Effects On The Body

BREATHALYZER

This is a basic picture of a breathalyzer and how it works. Inside the tube there are three different compounds:

Potassium dichromate (orange-yellow color), sulfuric acid and silver nitrate (catalyst).

When you hove alcohol in your breath:

When you breath into the breathalyzer, the sulfuric acid extracts the ethyl alcohol (what makes your breath smell like beer or wine) from your breath. when the ethyl alcohol mixes with the potassium dichromate and turns into a mixture of chromium sulfate (greenish-blue color), potassium sulfate, acetic acid and water.

When you don't have alcohol in your breath:

There is the same mixture on the inside but if you breath into the breathalyzer and there is no ethyl alcohol in your breath the potassium dichromate has nothing to mix with and so nothing happens.

In other words if you breath into a breathalyzer and you have alcohol in your breath the crystals in the breathalyzer will change from yellow to green. If you have no alcohol in your blood nothing will happen and it will stay yellow.

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