News
15-July 2010 –
Driving up standards in drink-driving tests – LGC
Standards launches new ethanol reference
materials
New forensic ethanol reference materials for
blood-alcohol level testing will help the UK meet new EU
drink-driving limits
LGC, in its capacity as the UK’s designated
National Measurement Institute for
chemical and bioanalytical measurements, has extended its range of
certified reference materials (CRMs) for ethanol in water by
producing two new reference materials. These two new reference
materials have been produced at concentrations of 50 and 67
milligrammes of ethanol per 100 millilitres – in line with the
current blood and urine alcohol limits for drink-driving in many
European Countries.
In the UK, the limit in blood is currently 80 mg/100 mL, but the
recently published North Review of Drink and Drug Driving Law
strongly recommended that this limit be reduced to 50 mg/100 mL
(http://northreview.independent.gov.uk).
Although it is not certain if the new coalition Government will
accept this recommended reduction, LGC
Standards is ready to support forensic toxicologists by making
these new reference materials available now.
These materials are intended for the calibration and validation
of methods for the determination of ethanol in biological fluids,
and have been produced under LGC’s accreditation to ISO Guide 34
for the production of reference materials.
The new reference materials meet the stringent technical
guidelines of European Reference Materials (ERM®) status and the
data were accepted as complying with the principles laid down in
the Technical Guidelines of the ERM co-operation agreement between
LGC, BAM and IRMM (http://www.erm-crm.org).
The forensic ethanol reference materials were produced and
certified by LGC, through chemical oxidation of the ethanol present
with excess potassium dichromate followed by titration with
acidified iron (II) ammonium sulfate.
The complete range of forensic ethanol reference materials
produced by LGC is:
20 mg/100 mL ERM®-AC409
50 mg/100 mL ERM® -AC510a
67 mg/100 mL ERM® -AC511a
80 mg/100 mL ERM®-AC 401
107 mg/100 mL ERM® -AC402
200 mg/100 mL ERM®-AC403
These reference materials are available from LGC Standards
(www.lgcstandards.com),
the division of LGC that provides products and services to improve
measurement in the laboratory. For prices and ordering information,
please email: uksales@lgcstandards.com or
call +44 (0)20 8943 8480.
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Notes to
editors