The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 13, 1988
Filed:
Jan. 15, 1987
Karl P Wolf, St. Louis, MO (US);
Alcotek, Inc., St. Louis, MO (US);
Abstract
Apparatus for measuring breath alcohol content by oxidizing breath alcohol in a fuel cell and utilizing substantially all of the electrons produced by said oxidation as a measure of the amount of alcohol contained in the sample. A working embodiment of the invention includes a resistor across terminals of the fuel cell with a resistance that is high enough to permit the voltage from the fuel cell to be accurately measured but low enough to permit the voltage to fall to a substantially steady minimum voltage within a time on the order of two minutes or less. The method of measuring breath alcohol concentration comprises integrating the entire area under the curve generated by the fuel cell output voltage between the beginning of oxidation of the alcohol in the fuel cell and the reaching of the substantially steady minimum.