AAAR 35th Annual Conference October 17 - October 21, 2016 Oregon Convention Center Portland, Oregon, USA
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PM Badge: A Wearable, Low-Power, Cellular-Enabled, Direct-Read Mass MEMS PM2.5 Sensor
DORSA FAHIMI, Omid Mahdavipour, Paul A. Solomon, Lara Gundel, Richard White, Igor Paprotny, University of Illinois at Chicago
Abstract Number: 440 Working Group: Instrumentation and Methods
Abstract This work describes the development of a wearable fine particulate matter (PM$_(2.5)) sensor optimized for low-power and small-size. The micro-electromechanical (MEMS) based PM$_(2.5) sensor is capable of real-time detection of particle mass. In this sensor, an air-microfluidics circuit separates fine particles from the airstream by means of an elutriator, and a film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR) directly measures the mass of fine particles deposited on its surface by thermophoresis. Taking advantage of microfabrication technologies, the footprint area of the sensor is miniaturized to a few cm$^3, enabling the operation of the sensor at very low flowrates (< 5 ml/min). The relatively low pressure drop of the elutriator at such low flow rates enables low power usage, which in turn allows for the integration of this device into a wearable package for continuous personal air quality monitoring.
We report on the design of the sensor, an optimized air-microfluidics circuit for low-power, and experimental results of testing the sensor in the presence of incense smoke. The sensor has shown the sensitivity of few hertz cubic meter per micro-gram per minute, with a low detection limit of single micro-grams per cubic meter for PM$_(2.5) mass. We also report on the connectivity of the wearable PM$_(2.5) sensor to a cellular phone through Bluetooth for real-time displaying of the data acquired from the FBAR.