Ethanol concentrations in the coagulated blood of a bovine, a rabbit and a human were measured by using PY-GC/MS attached with a double-shot pyrolyzer (Model PY-2010D, Frontier Laboratories Ltd., Japan). Pyrolysis of samples was performed at 260°C, and the vapor evaporated from the sample was introduced into the GC/MS directly. For the control experiments, the concentrations of ethanol in both the heparinized bovine and rabbit blood, and homogenized human coagulated blood were measured by headspace-GC.
The values of ethanol in the coagulated blood of the bovine, the rabbit and the human obtained by PY-GC/MS analysis were almost equal to that of the control experiments. These results indicated that the method using PY-GC/MS could be useful to the ethanol analysis of the coagulated blood in a practical case. In addition, the overall analytical time was about 10 minutes and the sample volume necessary for analysis was only 1 mg.