Characterisation and Deployment of a new Environmental Particulate Matter Detector
Dr Phil Rosenberg, Dr Jim McQuaid and Dr Kirsty Pringle
Airborne particulate matter (PM) is a term used to describe aerosol particles from many sources (pollution, and natural). PM can affect the lungs and heart when inhaled; it can aggravate asthma, cause nonfatal heart attacks and premature death in people with heart or lung disease. PM also affects the environment by reflecting sunlight back to space and changing cloud and precipitation processes by acting as condensation nuclei. Measuring PM is clearly of significant interest.
A new breed of small, portable optical particle counters which measure PM have recently been released to market providing the potential to deploy networks of sensors in remote or mobile locations. Researchers in ICAS recently deployed a number of Dylos Air Quality monitors for a NERC funded outreach project (www.theairinsaltaire.wordpress.com). It is anticipated that they will be used in Indonesia during summer 2016 and beyond. They provide somewhat limited data and it would be highly beneficial to explore how the data can be improved (by splitting into size ranges PM1, PM2.5 & PM10 for example).
The project will take one of these units set up a logging system with a miniature PC/microcontroller such as a Raspberry Pi or Arduino and determine its response to calibration nanospheres in the lab. The device can be compared with a more advanced instrument to determine the data quality. The data would be reported back to a cloud server (wifi or 3G connectivity) and made available via a web interface. The Met Office have expressed interest in having this system report data to their WOW system as a first trial for incorporating air quality monitoring across this network.
This will be an excellent opportunity for the participant to expand their instrumentation, laboratory, fieldwork and programming (e.g. Python, C/C++, PHP, etc) knowledge and there is additional flexibility depending upon the skills and progress of the participant. For example learning more about the instrument capabilities in the laboratory or looking at other low cost environmental sensors (e.g. http://airpi.es/, https://publiclab.org/notes/Willie/04-01-2014/field-testing-the-shenyei-pm-sensor).
Once characterized the instrument will be deployed in the field. A number of possible options exist:
- On the University campus to measure urban pollution and compare to predictions of local and transported concentrations.
- In a home setting to determine personal exposure due to dust, cooking, pets etc
- As part of a possible follow-on campaign in the style of the Air in Saltaire project or similar to look at the effect of microclimates on particulate matter concentrations.
- In a car to examine pollution exposure during commuting.