Blood, fuel content

A more down-to-Earth use of fuel cells is found in traffic-law enforcement. Police officers need quick and simple ways to determine a person s blood alcohol level in the field. In the time it takes to bring a person to the station or to a hospital for a blood or urine test, the person s blood alcohol content (BAG) might change. Fuel cells, such as the one in the device shown above, provide a quick and accurate way to measure BAG from a breath sample. The alcohol ethanol from the person s breath is oxidized to acetic acid at the anode. At the cathode, gaseous oxygen is reduced and combined with hydronium ions (released from the anode) to form water. The reactions generate an electric current. The size of this current is related to the BAG. 

No analytical methods studies were located for detecting fuel oils in biological samples other than blood, urine, or stomach contents. 

The heart, with its huge mitochondrial content and oxidative capacity, is able to use lactate released from other tissues as a fuel. During an exercise such as bicycle riding, lactate released into the blood from skeletal muscles in the leg might be used by resting skeletal muscles in the arm. In the brain, glial cells and astrocytes produce lactate, which is used by neurons or released into the blood. 

In studying the toxicology of flame attack in poorly ventilated enclosed spaces like those found in Japanese bunkers and similar fortifications, researchers determined that three important changes occurred within them at the moment of flame attack, quite aside from the penetration of the flaming fuel itself there was a sudden jump in temperature, lethal concentrations of carbon monoxide were built up in the bunker, and there was a dangerous lowering of oxygen content. They learned that 70 percent carbon monoxide in the blood resulted in unconsciousness and frequently in death and that this accumulation was obtainable in flame attack within two minutes. Furthermore, only one-tenth of one percent... 

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