AAAR 36th Annual Conference October 16 - October 20, 2017 Raleigh Convention Center Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
Abstract View
Towards an Improved Understanding of the Conditions that Undermine the Reliability of Low-cost AQ Sensor Systems
EBEN CROSS, David K. Lewis, Leah Williams, David Hagan, Jesse Kroll, Ann Backus, Gary Adamkiewicz, Douglas Worsnop, John Jayne, Aerodyne Research, Inc.
Abstract Number: 610 Working Group: Instrumentation and Methods
Abstract Because of the large expense and expertise required to set up and maintain air quality monitoring stations, our understanding of communities’ exposures to air pollutants is generally based upon an extremely limited number of measurements. Such measurements (no more than 1-4 monitoring stations per urban area, reporting concentrations on hourly or daily basis) do not capture the enormous temporal and spatial variability of air pollutants across densely populated urban areas. This greatly limits our ability to connect air quality to health outcomes and inform the public about local sources and levels of air pollution. In this presentation, we will describe results from the Dorchester Air Quality Sensor System (DAQSS) an initial 4-node network distributed in the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester. DAQSS provides an opportunity to assess the longer-term (~1-2 yr.) quantitative potential of electrochemical sensors (Alphasense model B4 series) for measurement of criteria gas pollutants (carbon monoxide, nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide, and ozone), as well as a low-cost Optical Particle Counter (Alphasense OPC-N2) for measurement of particulate matter number concentration. Presented work will highlight the importance of calibrating/training/modeling sensor response against a comprehensive set of environmental conditions that mimic the magnitudes and rates-of-change of temperature, humidity (dew point), and pollutant gas concentrations encountered by the deployed sensor system out in the ‘real-world’.