Air Monitoring 25 A simple and eff ective tool for fi ghting radon contamination
Over ten percent of cases of lung cancer are linked to an excess of exposure to radon, according to a report from the World Health Organisation. Radon (Rn) is present from a wide variety of natural and man-made sources. This odourless, colourless radioactive gas is the immediate decay product of radium resulting from the radioactive decay of uranium that takes place naturally in rock and soil. Hence all people are exposed to Rn in varying degrees.
Most Rn in indoor air comes from soil and is proving to be more of a hazard than levels of Rn in the drinking water supply. The level of Rn inside a building is largely determined by its location and whether the ground on which it is located has signifi cant levels of uranium present to create the gas. Once Rn reaches the open air, it will rapidly dissolve to a relatively harmless, low concentration. However, if it rises in to a home or commercial property, it can be trapped and build up to dangerous levels for people inside the building. The radioactive decay will then create alpha particles, which in turn can cause permanent damage to lung tissue.
To combat this danger, Euro-Gas have developed the Radon SS, a unique, high performance phototransistor gas sensor capable of detecting a fi eld range of 0-65,000Bq/m3 More information online:
ilmt.co/PL/o02B 10 things AQMesh did fi rst
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2022 marked 10 years of innovation and leadership from AQMesh. To highlight the team’s experience, ongoing forward-thinking and its commitment to pushing the capabilities of small sensor systems, here are the top 10 things AQMesh developed fi rst and refi ned since it commercially launched in 2012.
1. IoT connectivity using the mobile phone network: remote data for small sensor air quality monitoring - AQMesh was the fi rst small sensor manufacturer to adopt an IoT approach, using the mobile phone network to connect with the cloud, allowing remote access of data from individual measurement points. Until then, conventional equipment used loggers and other early small sensor air quality equipment offered direct download or radio communication, often across a group of sensor nodes.
, O3 , CO, SO2 , H2 S, TVOC
2. Integration of gas and PM monitoring in a single small sensor instrument - Since 2013, AQMesh pods have been able to monitor gases and particles in one instrument. The compact pods have continued to lead in terms of the wide range of measurements offered on a single unit: up to six gases out of NO, NO2
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and CO2 as well as PM monitoring and options for noise and wind speed/direction. Pressure, relative humidity and pod temperature are all measured as standard. In the 2019 AIRLAB International Microsensors Challenge, AQMesh was recognised as the most accurate multi-parameter outdoor air quality monitor, and was evaluated for the highest number of pollutant measurements offered within a single system.
3. Mini optical particle counter, counting and sorting particles by size, for accuracy across all PM fractions - AQMesh’s in-house designed optical particle counter measures particulates PM1, PM2.5, PM10, TPC and TSP (up to 30 microns). Its bespoke design uses a straight line between the sample inlet and bench, meaning larger particles do not settle in a bent sample path, allowing for complete capture of pollutants. Additionally, the OPC uses a pump instead of a fan, which produces a steady fl ow from inlet to sample measurement, and subsequently provides consistency for the sample calculations - fans can cause vacuums which could interfere with the fl ow rate and affect the sample measurement. The AQMesh OPC therefore allows more coarse particles (PM10) in the sample to be accurately measured.
4. Pioneers of city-wide small sensor networks from Citi-Sense to the Breathe London Pilot - Initiated in 2012, AQMesh was part of the EU-funded consortium which set up a ground-breaking project to advise citizens about air quality, across eight cities, using hundreds of measurement devices. The Breathe London pilot, which ran from 2018 to 2020, and in which 100 AQMesh pods were used, was the world’s fi rst hyperlocal monitoring network. The two year pilot project proved & validated small sensors for city-wide monitoring, and also led to the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) publishing a ‘blueprint’ for other cities.
5. Real-time out-of-the-box accuracy with correction for environmental conditions and cross-gas effects without the need for machine - learningAQMesh’s high accuracy and performance has been achieved through years of extensive global co-location comparison trials against certifi ed reference equipment, in all seasons, meaning AQMesh can accurately operate in the widest possible range of environments and conditions. No other manufacturer has access to the wealth of data that AQMesh has gathered. With these datasets AQMesh has been able to develop meaningful correction of cross-gas effects and interference from environmental conditions through its fully traceable data processing algorithms.
6. ‘Gold pod’ approach - The ‘gold pod’ approach, as originally described by the AQMesh team, involves one unit being co-located with and scaled against a maintained reference station and then moved around a network of nodes to calibrate each of the other units. This method has now been widely adopted and offers an effective way to improve accuracy and achieve traceability. It was back in 2017 when Professor Rod Jones from the University of Cambridge presented the results of the ‘gold pod’ approach in which 20 AQMesh pods were deployed across Cambridge after co- locating one with reference, and he commented at the time “Because we know that all the pods read the same and because we have a comparison between one pod and a reference instrument we can say that all pods are working equivalently across the city.”
7. White refl ective sunshield and insulation for temperature management - The sunshield was fi rst added to AQMesh pods in 2013 to minimise the impact of direct sunlight on pod sensors. Various solutions were tested – for active or passive cooling – and AQMesh’s refl ective shield, insulation and air fl ow gap was found to be most effective at minimising the challenge to temperature stability from strong, direct sunshine.
8. Promote rigorous QA/QC and offer feasible methods to achieve it - Since 2015, the AQMesh onsite reference station means each sensor has been tested through a rigorous quality control process before it leaves the UK factory. The custom-built enclosure uses climate-controlled reference/equivalence analysers sampling air from an ambient cage which can hold up to 100 AQMesh pods at a time. This ambient characterisation during manufacture is part of a stringent AQMesh quality assurance process, which also includes strict criteria for PM, so every AQMesh pod out in the fi eld to date has been through specifi c quality control measures to ensure the effi ciency and reliability of each sensor in real-world conditions. QA/QC doesn’t end at the factory either; the AQMesh team regularly offer remote QA/QC of data once pods are out in the fi eld.
9. CO2 emissions profi ling - AQMesh can offer incredibly high out-of-the-box accuracy (typically less than 15% uncertainty) for CO2
monitoring. Using this reliable data, AQMesh can be used for CO2 source apportionment, and measuring alongside NO and NO2 can allow for emissions profi les
for different locations to be determined. This means the combustion contributing to the pollution can be specifi cally identifi ed; such as whether there is either gas or diesel traffi c, which is only possible with such accurate data.
10. Long distance scaling - The Breathe London pilot showed how pods could be traceably scaled across a city, using a novel approach pioneered by partners at the University of Cambridge. This technique, which reduces the fi eld demands of the proven gold pod approach, requires basic measurement data of a good quality in order to be effective, and AQMesh have built on the initial Breathe London methodology with their own simplifi ed Long Distance Scaling tool.
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WWW.ENVIROTECH-ONLINE.COM levels, with a standard range
of 1750pCi/l Rn. This user-friendly technology can be easily integrated in portable and fi xed air quality and gas detection instruments and offers operators complete data for current and average Rn alpha particle concentration.
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