Römhild W., Bartels H., Krause D.

Institute of Forensic Medicine, Leipziger Str.44, Otto-von-Guericke University, D-39120 Magdeburg, Germany

Introduction. Many hit-and-run drunk drivers maintain that they consumed alcohol after the driving but before taking samples of blood and urine for medicolegal purposes. To confirm or challenge this statement, forensic toxicologists have developed what is known as congener analysis which serves as a complement to measuring the concentration of ethanol in blood. The main congeners usually are detected by GC fitted with a Flame Ion Detector. The connection of gas chromatography with mass spectrometry has rarely been used in the routine of the congeners analysis, because the mass numbers of air and water are in the range of important substances and due to large differences in concentrations between ethanol/congeners.
Method. Capillary column DB 624 (60 m x 0.32 mm, df = 1.8 µm) with special pressure program, "micro- headspace-sampling" according to Wolf and Weller (1, 2); detection with 29 "SIM"-groups; calibration with solutions of 29 substances with concentrations of 40, 20 and 2 mg/l for analysis of drinks and 2, 1 and 0.5 for blood and urine analysis.
Results. The clean separation with base line chromatogram yielded the differentiation of 29 congeners. A list containing substances of different drinks is presented.

References;

1. Wolf and Weller, Blutalkohol, 1985, 22, 321-332
2. Wolf and Weller, Blutalkohol, 1987, 24, 378-391