Development of a Gas-Tight Syringe Headspace GC-FID Method for the Detection of Ethanol, and a Description of the Legal and Practical Framework for Its Analysis, in Samples of English and Welsh Motorists’ Blood and Urine

Ethanol is the most commonly used recreational drug worldwide. This study describes the development and validation of a headspace gas chromatography flame ionisation detection (HS-GC-FID) method using dual columns and detectors for simultaneous separation and quantitation. The use of a dual-column, dual-detector HS-GC-FID to quantitate ethanol is a common analytical technique in forensic toxicology; however, most analytical systems utilise pressure-balance injection rather than a simplified gas-tight syringe, as per this technique. This study is the first to develop and validate a technique that meets the specifications of the United Kingdom’s requirements for road traffic toxicology testing using a Shimadzu GC-2014 gas-tight syringe. The calibration ranged from 10 to 400 mg/100 mL, with a target minimum linearity of r2 > 0.999, using tertiary butanol as the internal standard marker. The method has an expanded uncertainty at 99.73% confidence of 3.64% at 80 mg/100 mL, which is the blood alcohol limit for drink driving in England and Wales. In addition, at 200 mg%—the limit at which a custodial sentence may be imposed on the defendant—the expanded uncertainty was 1.95%. For both the 80 mg% and 200 mg% concentrations, no bias was present in the analytical method. This method displays sufficient separation for other alcohols, such as methanol, isopropanol, acetaldehyde, and acetone. The validation of this technique complies with the recommended laboratory guidelines set out by United Kingdom and Ireland Association of Forensic Toxicologists (UKIAFT), the recently issued Laboratory 51 guidelines by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS), and the criteria set out by the California Code of Regulations (CCR), 17 CCR § 1220.1.