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Journal ArticleDOI

Can commercial low-cost sensor platforms contribute to air quality monitoring and exposure estimates?

TL;DR: An exhaustive evaluation of 24 identical units of a commercial low-cost sensor platform against CEN (European Standardization Organization) reference analyzers, evaluating their measurement capability over time and a range of environmental conditions shows that their performance varies spatially and temporally.
About: This article is published in Environment International.The article was published on 2017-02-01 and is currently open access. It has received 607 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Data quality & Environmental exposure.
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A brief insight into the materials and basics of sensors (methods of transduction, molecular recognition, and amplification) is provided followed by a comprehensive and critical overview of the disposable sensors currently used for medical diagnostics, food, and environmental analysis.
Abstract: Disposable sensors are low-cost and easy-to-use sensing devices intended for short-term or rapid single-point measurements. The growing demand for fast, accessible, and reliable information in a vastly connected world makes disposable sensors increasingly important. The areas of application for such devices are numerous, ranging from pharmaceutical, agricultural, environmental, forensic, and food sciences to wearables and clinical diagnostics, especially in resource-limited settings. The capabilities of disposable sensors can extend beyond measuring traditional physical quantities (for example, temperature or pressure); they can provide critical chemical and biological information (chemo- and biosensors) that can be digitized and made available to users and centralized/decentralized facilities for data storage, remotely. These features could pave the way for new classes of low-cost systems for health, food, and environmental monitoring that can democratize sensing across the globe. Here, a brief insight into the materials and basics of sensors (methods of transduction, molecular recognition, and amplification) is provided followed by a comprehensive and critical overview of the disposable sensors currently used for medical diagnostics, food, and environmental analysis. Finally, views on how the field of disposable sensing devices will continue its evolution are discussed, including the future trends, challenges, and opportunities.

444 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Over the past decade, a range of sensor technologies became available on the market, enabling a revolutionary shift in air pollution monitoring and assessment, and it can be argued that with a significant future expansion of monitoring networks, including indoor environments, there may be less need for wearable or portable sensors/monitors to assess personal exposure.

418 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The performance characteristics of several low-cost particle and gas monitoring sensors are reviewed and recommendations to end-users for making proper sensor selection are provided by summarizing the capabilities and limitations of such sensors.

323 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the Real-time Affordable Multi-Pollutant (RAMP) sensor package is used to measure CO, NO2, O3, and CO2.
Abstract: . Low-cost sensing strategies hold the promise of denser air quality monitoring networks, which could significantly improve our understanding of personal air pollution exposure. Additionally, low-cost air quality sensors could be deployed to areas where limited monitoring exists. However, low-cost sensors are frequently sensitive to environmental conditions and pollutant cross-sensitivities, which have historically been poorly addressed by laboratory calibrations, limiting their utility for monitoring. In this study, we investigated different calibration models for the Real-time Affordable Multi-Pollutant (RAMP) sensor package, which measures CO, NO2, O3, and CO2. We explored three methods: (1) laboratory univariate linear regression, (2) empirical multiple linear regression, and (3) machine-learning-based calibration models using random forests (RF). Calibration models were developed for 16–19 RAMP monitors (varied by pollutant) using training and testing windows spanning August 2016 through February 2017 in Pittsburgh, PA, US. The random forest models matched (CO) or significantly outperformed (NO2, CO2, O3) the other calibration models, and their accuracy and precision were robust over time for testing windows of up to 16 weeks. Following calibration, average mean absolute error on the testing data set from the random forest models was 38 ppb for CO (14 % relative error), 10 ppm for CO2 (2 % relative error), 3.5 ppb for NO2 (29 % relative error), and 3.4 ppb for O3 (15 % relative error), and Pearson r versus the reference monitors exceeded 0.8 for most units. Model performance is explored in detail, including a quantification of model variable importance, accuracy across different concentration ranges, and performance in a range of monitoring contexts including the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) and the US EPA Air Sensors Guidebook recommendations of minimum data quality for personal exposure measurement. A key strength of the RF approach is that it accounts for pollutant cross-sensitivities. This highlights the importance of developing multipollutant sensor packages (as opposed to single-pollutant monitors); we determined this is especially critical for NO2 and CO2. The evaluation reveals that only the RF-calibrated sensors meet the US EPA Air Sensors Guidebook recommendations of minimum data quality for personal exposure measurement. We also demonstrate that the RF-model-calibrated sensors could detect differences in NO2 concentrations between a near-road site and a suburban site less than 1.5 km away. From this study, we conclude that combining RF models with carefully controlled state-of-the-art multipollutant sensor packages as in the RAMP monitors appears to be a very promising approach to address the poor performance that has plagued low-cost air quality sensors.

308 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results indicate that the data fusion method provides a robust way of extracting useful information from uncertain sensor data using only a time-invariant model dataset and the knowledge contained within an entire sensor network.

229 citations

References
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Journal ArticleDOI
03 Feb 2006-Science
TL;DR: The establishment of principles and test procedures to ensure safe manufacture and use of nanomaterials in the marketplace is urgently required and achievable.
Abstract: Nanomaterials are engineered structures with at least one dimension of 100 nanometers or less. These materials are increasingly being used for commercial purposes such as fillers, opacifiers, catalysts, semiconductors, cosmetics, microelectronics, and drug carriers. Materials in this size range may approach the length scale at which some specific physical or chemical interactions with their environment can occur. As a result, their properties differ substantially from those bulk materials of the same composition, allowing them to perform exceptional feats of conductivity, reactivity, and optical sensitivity. Possible undesirable results of these capabilities are harmful interactions with biological systems and the environment, with the potential to generate toxicity. The establishment of principles and test procedures to ensure safe manufacture and use of nanomaterials in the marketplace is urgently required and achievable.

8,323 citations


"Can commercial low-cost sensor plat..." refers methods in this paper

  • ...…(10–100 nm) and daily total as well as cardio-respiratory mortality using time-series epidemiological analysis (Stölzel et al., 2007), promoting number concentrations measurements as an appropriate metric for assessing health effects (Nel et al., 2006; Peters et al., 1997 and Xia et al., 2009)....

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The present study suggests that the size distribution of ambient particles helps to elucidate the properties of ambient aerosols responsible for health effects.
Abstract: The association between fine and ultrafine particles and respiratory health was studied in adults with a history of asthma in Erfurt, Eastern Germany. Twenty-seven nonsmoking asthmatics recorded their peak expiratory flow (PEF) and respiratory symptoms daily. The size distribution of ambient particles in the range of 0.01 to 2.5 microm was determined with an aerosol spectrometer during the winter season 1991-1992. Most of the particles (73%) were in the ultrafine fraction (smaller than 0.1 microm in diameter), whereas most of the mass (82%) was attributable to particles in the size range of 0.1 to 0.5 microm. Because these two fractions did not have similar time courses (correlation coefficient r = 0.51), a comparison of their health effects was possible. Both fractions were associated with a decrease of PEF and an increase in cough and feeling ill during the day. Health effects of the 5-d mean of the number of ultrafine particles were larger than those of the mass of the fine particles. In addition, the effects of the number of the ultrafine particles on PEF were stronger than those of particulate matter smaller than 10 microm (PM10). Therefore, the present study suggests that the size distribution of ambient particles helps to elucidate the properties of ambient aerosols responsible for health effects.

1,290 citations


"Can commercial low-cost sensor plat..." refers methods in this paper

  • ...…(10–100 nm) and daily total as well as cardio-respiratory mortality using time-series epidemiological analysis (Stölzel et al., 2007), promoting number concentrations measurements as an appropriate metric for assessing health effects (Nel et al., 2006; Peters et al., 1997 and Xia et al., 2009)....

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Air pollution monitoring paradigm is rapidly changing due to recent advances in the development of portable, lower-cost air pollution sensors reporting data in near-real time at a high-time resolution, increased computational and visualization capabilities, and wireless communication/infrastructure.
Abstract: The air pollution monitoring paradigm is rapidly changing due to recent advances in (1) the development of portable, lower-cost air pollution sensors reporting data in near-real time at a high-time...

653 citations


"Can commercial low-cost sensor plat..." refers background in this paper

  • ...Sensor platforms are currently available to monitor a range of air pollutants and new devices are continually being introduced (Aleixandre and Gerboles, 2012; Snyder et al., 2013; Piedrahita et al., 2014)....

    [...]

  • ...Indeed, interest in low cost sensors is on the rise even before the sensor performance has been evaluated, and widespread data collection and data sharing using these sensor technologies is already occurring (Snyder et al., 2013; Lewis and Edwards, 2016)....

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  • ...Attributes of sensor platforms are relatively lower in cost, easier to use and less bulky than traditional equipment, and provide the possibility for citizens and communities to monitor their local air quality that may affect their health (Snyder et al., 2013)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is shown that miniature, low-cost electrochemical gas sensors can, when suitably configured and operated, be used for parts-per-billion level studies for gases relevant to urban air quality, and that measurement networks with higher resolution are required to quantify air quality at the scales which are present in the urban environment.

619 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The drivers behind current rises in the use of low-cost sensors for air pollution management in cities are illustrated, while addressing the major challenges for their effective implementation.

591 citations


"Can commercial low-cost sensor plat..." refers background in this paper

  • ...However, legislation to regulate the usability of these data is not in place yet (Castell et al., 2013; Kumar et al., 2015; Lewis and Edwards, 2016)....

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