A way to detect laughing gas on people鈥檚 breath for at least an hour after use could be developed into a breathalyser-like test.
As recreational use of laughing gas, or nitrous oxide, in countries such as the UK, some have moved to ban it. The UK government, for example, made it illegal to possess nitrous oxide in 2023. However, as nitrous oxide is a gas rather than a solid, it鈥檚 harder to test using biological samples and there is little information on how long it might last in the body.
Now, at the Free University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands and his colleagues have found that traces of nitrous oxide can be detected for at least an hour in a person鈥檚 breath after it has been used recreationally.
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They first tested whether an infrared sensor could reliably detect nitrous oxide in the air, finding that it could differentiate the gas from others with more than 90 per cent accuracy.
Jim茅nez and his team then asked 24 people to inhale air from a balloon that was filled with either air or pure nitrous oxide, or two balloons of pure nitrous oxide. Afterwards, they collected breath samples from the participants at 15-minute intervals for one hour and used the infrared sensor to measure their nitrous oxide levels.
The researchers found they could still detect the gas for the full hour after inhalation, regardless of whether one or two balloons were inhaled; the gas might be detectable for even longer than this.
鈥淭his could potentially be a very useful technology, because there鈥檚 a real harm associated with nitrous oxide,鈥� says at Liverpool John Moores University, UK. Short-term use can slow reaction times or cause loss of consciousness. Chronic use has also been linked to .
鈥淏ut it鈥檚 just whether it can actually be developed further into a portable roadside kit, and whether economically that makes sense to the police, considering that the number of offenses involving nitrous oxide is of concern, but relatively low compared to other drugs,鈥� says Sumnall.
Scientific Reports
