Let’s dive into nanoparticles or as the atmospheric scientists call them ultrafine particles (UFP) or PM0.1. The term nanoparticles applies to material engineering, eventually, both terms are the same thing. A nanoparticle is a microscopic particle with at least one dimension less than 100nm. One nanometer (1nm) is only three to five atoms wide.
Recent research suggests these nanoparticles could be responsible for illness and death beyond our current understanding. We know that PM2.5 is quite small and can penetrate deep inside our bodies and it can reach even the alveolar sacs where the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide occurs.
PM2.5 is around 2,500 nanometers (nm) in diameter. However, nanoparticles are 100nm (0.1μm) or less. In comparison, they are 25 times smaller, as a result, they can reach any organ in our bodies.
Since my first book “See The Air | The Essential Guide for Optimal Air Quality in Your Life“ was published back in 2017 many have read it, and many have followed my example and tried to write and describe the problem too.
There is some interest in the field, and I want to contribute even more by gathering all the available information regarding air pollution and its impact on health in this book. My intention here is clear, I want to shock people and authorities and make it clear that there is proof. Air pollution kills millions of people every year, and there is no excuse not to listen to brilliant scientists and the noble work they have done.
The book is available in digital and paperback form.
I have already mentioned this app on a previous post but I was waiting for this update anxiously as it brings more sensors to the app. Local Haze is an app for iOS devices that helps consumers easily view and understand air quality data, in particular, Particulate Matter with aerodynamic diameters less than or equal to 2.5 microns (μm) also known as PM2.5.
What’s new?
Amazingly, the team behind Local Haze was able to connect to the uRAD Monitors API, as a result users and communities will be able to see PM2.5 data right from their phone or tablet with just a tap. Additionally, the users can now view PM1.0 and PM10 values when the sensors support these measurements.
This update to the Local Haze app also benefits Smoggie users and especially my volunteers around the world since it allows users to view and monitor the data from these devices.
Of course, the app supports many more data sources like PurpleAir, Luftdaten (with over 11,000 online devices), AirNow, US Department of State, uRADMonitors, and more to come.
Local Haze v1.4, Smoggie Volunteer in Barcelona, Spain
Why is it important?
The easier and more comfortable we present data to the average people the more likely it is for them to embrace the technologies which are designed to increase awareness and to combat air pollution. People love their phones and they spend a great deal of time interacting with them, by porting air quality data to such devices, with the help of a free app, then it enables them to interact with their environment/communities.
Right now, while people all over the world are patiently waiting to go outdoors again, trying out Local Haze will show you the air quality outside your door. The covid-19 pandemic helped us see how air quality has improved significantly in cities all over the world and understand that urban air pollution is anthropogenic. It’s up to all of us to keep improving the way we live and the air we breathe.
It’s been a huge topic the fact that air quality in cities has improved dramatically since the lockdown began. Huge coverage from media all around the world. Most surprisingly, I get emails from people telling me that now they are able to see in much further distances on the horizon and the air smells clean as the air pollutants are not present in the atmosphere and I quote below a couple of the emails.
I thought of you this morning….with everyone staying home the pollution has almost went away…the air smells so good… (Texas, USA)
…it is amazing now we can see clearly the horizon from my house… (Los Angeles, USA)
With many examples like here in Madrid, air pollution falls 56% in the second half of March. In London, there is 28μg/m3 less NO2 in the atmosphere and in Edinburgh a whopping 37% decrease of NO2.
Which leads me to the conclusion that now people are more aware of the air pollution than before covid-19. People were used to living in polluted environments & didn’t understand the difference. If your whole life you live in an area where the AQ is poor you don’t expect more, you just take it as it is and unfortunately, without complaining. Most of the times you can’t even do anything as it doesn’t depend on you, some simple examples are when a neighbour is burning wood and when you leave near a busy road.
The other day I was asked what can we do to educate older generations about the issue. It is complicated because once you finish your studies and you start working or searching for a job, your mind is occupied with the need to support you and your family economically and you don’t care about the environment. A healthy and stable economy is a key ingredient to make everyone aware of our responsibility on this planet.
We need effective governance on long-term health and climate issues with the same willpower as are showing with this pandemic − covid-19.
In September 2019, I reviewed a great air quality monitor called Djinn. One of the unique features of this device is the algorithms that are running in its core. The team of Djinn was able to move even further their technology by designing a respiratory virus risk among others analytics on their dashboard, which is very handy during the covid-19 pandemic.
The team took part in the “A Call for Action” towards building the data infrastructure and ecosystem we need to tackle pandemics and other dynamic societal and environmental threats.Read More »
Starting with Insplorion AB, I am going to feature a series of articles about innovators in the field of air quality monitoring. My aim with these articles is to push the industry into the right direction. I don’t see air pollution as a way to make money but as a way to fix a problem, so by creating the right tools (sensors, air quality monitors, software, etc) we can shape the future towards a sustainable and less polluted environment.
Introduction
Insplorion AB was founded in 2010 in Sweden, Europe by a team of professionals, Bengt Kasemo, Elin Larsson Langhammer, Christoph Langhammer and Igor Zoric. Although it is relatively a small company with less than 20 employees it is very active in nanotechnology, product research and sensor development. Insplorion’s core technology is the NanoPlasmonic Sensing (NPS),at least in my opinion, which you can read and learn how it works more on the interview below.
Interview
1. Tell us a bit about your motivation in developing air quality sensors?
We were approached by an entrepreneur who wanted to make a portable air quality device. He had scanned the market for all sensor technologies and not found any functional, especially for NO2. All current sensors were either too bulky, way too pricy or not sensitive or stable enough.When we dug deeper into the field, we confirm the problem and saw that the unmet need in the expanding air quality sensor market fitted very well with our core advantages: sensitive yet robust, and easy to miniaturize. Read More »
In the past 6 months, Smoggies are operating and providing useful air quality insights to the users and the communities all around the world. Right now, there are more than 250 units in total, worldwide.
I decided to see how polluted the air was for my 8 volunteers during the month of February, 2020. Let’s set the record straight and remind ourselves that the WHO guideline stipulates that PM2.5 not exceed 10μg/m3 annual mean, or 25μg/m3 24-hour mean.
I wasn’t planning to write an article about the Coronavirus but after WHO declaring it a pandemic and as I receive a lot of traffic from people who try to find a good mask to protect themselves from the disease I changed my mind and I wrote a few lines on how I see the whole situation.
Better Air Quality
As you may have already read a NASA satellite took some pictures in Mainland China before and after the outbreak of the Covid-19. The imagery illustrates air pollution and how the concentrations of air pollutants have decreased dramatically after people were ordered to stay in quarantine. The same thing happened in Italy as the government restricted the movement and most Italians stayed at home.
The virus was able to achieve something that I and many fellow clean air advocates try to accomplish for quite some time now, to decrease air pollution in the urban environment.
The restriction of movement proves the fact that the majority of urban air pollution is anthropogenic and mostly due to inefficient transports. Diesel and petrol cars, old buses, vans, vehicle tires and many more. Vehicles don’t move around alone though, we are the drivers, as a result, we can do better.
Madness and misinformation
The madness of buying tones of toilet paper proves how humans are panicking and they are in a survival mode. They copy unconsciously others’ behavior, which is a primitive instinct, in order to make sure they are safe. Covid-19 is a respiratory infection which means it doesn’t mess with your digestive system.
Misinformation is a powerful tool for the exploiters who will say anything to you in order to scare you and of course to take your money. Read and listen to news from trusted sources and make sure you double-check them.
Don’t panic!
Wash your hands well, avoid touching your face and keep your personal belongings clean, like smartphones, computers, glasses, etc.
Masks
Face masks can offer a level of protection if they are well designed and of course, if you maintain them and keep them clean too. If a mask catches a virus, the virus can stay alive for hours and up to a few days.
Conclusion
Some believe that we have to isolate ourselves in a global scale in order to eradicate the disease, however, economically, I am not sure if we can afford it. In addition, spring is almost here (in my city temperatures are reaching 23°C) which makes it much more difficult for people to stay indoors.
I am not an expert in that area but what do you believe? Should we close all businesses and institutes for 2-3 weeks and stay indoors?
I managed to grant permission from the local authorities (Junta de Andalucia) here in my city Almeria to place two low-cost monitors among the reference instruments in order to determine whether the two consumer products could offer fair readings to the users.
After filing some paperwork and the help of the responsible people in my city, they granted me access to the reference Monitor ES1393A (Mediterráneo) that complies with all EU standards. It is a quite powerful station as it is equipped with many expensive instruments (figure 1) which measure many types of pollutants, such as Nitrogen Oxide (NO), Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), ground-level Ozone (O3), Carbon Monoxide (CO), Sulphur Dioxide (SO2), PM10, PM2.5 and many more.
The portable consumer-grade monitors that I placed in the reference AQ station were the Atmotube Pro and the Flow 2. Of course, I placed them outside the station and I attached them to the PM2.5 beta attenuation monitor air inlet (as you can see in figure 2) because I wanted to ensure the greatest PM2.5 correlation possible.
A beta attenuation monitor (BAM) is a universally used air monitoring technique that employs the absorption of beta radiation by solid particles extracted from airflow. This technique allows for the precise detection of PM2.5 without humidity affecting the results (a common problem for the laser scattering sensors). However, there are some drawbacks, for instance, it doesn’t provide data in real-time and it takes only a few measurements in an hour.
Figure 1: Air Pollution Monitors
Figure 2: BAM air inlet and Portable AQ Monitors
The portable monitors took measurements continuously for three and a half days with an interval of 1 minute between each measurement. The reference monitors took measurements every 10 minutes, so the data from the reference monitor are not as dense as from the Atmotube and Flow but are much more accurate and even without the same density we will be able to get a good idea of what is going on.
Before presenting the results from this comparison, I would like to mention that my measurements cannot be taken as a “de facto”. In order to determine the real correlation of a monitor or a sensor, you need at least 3 units and various days to months of data. Maybe some other units from both parties, PlumeLabs and Atmotube, may give different results. The climate also affects the performance of the sensors, so a different geographical location can give us different results.
Nitrogen Dioxide
Let’s begin with the comparison of the NO2 gas sensor inside the Flow 2 and the reference monitor Teledyne Model 200E. The official measurements were in μg/m3 so I had to convert them into parts per billion (ppb). Converting the original values to ppb is not an easy task as you have to know the molecular weight of the pollutants (NO2=46.0055g/mol) and most importantly the temperature and atmospheric pressure at the time each value was taken, the problem was that they didn’t provide me with that data and I didn’t have them either. As a result, I looked them up and the average values were 15°C/59°F and 1019hPa, so to simplify my workflow I used those numbers in the formula for all the conversions. I know, I know, the data from the reference monitor are not 100% correct now but they are very close so they will do the trick.
Green: Teledyne Model 200E | Yellow: Flow 2
As you can see in the graph above there are quite many similarities in the trajectory of the lines. I was quite surprised and happy to be honest. You can clearly see how the low-cost sensor keeps getting exited from the pollutant(s) for a longer time but it was able to follow the official measurements. Keep that in mind, the official monitor Teledyne Model 200E worths around 8,000€ and Flow worths 159€.
Particulate Matter
Let’s continue our comparison with the Particulate Matter sensors from Atmotube Pro and Flow 2. Firstly, let’s see the PM10 measurements as the reference monitor Met One Instrument BAM 1020 (~18,000€) only provided the PM10 concentrations. The air inlet for the PM10 was about a meter away from where the 2 portable AQ monitors were placed and this is one of the reasons we can see that the concentrations from the BAM 1020 were much higher than the low-cost sensors.
Atmotube was able to follow the same trajectory as the BAM 1020 and when I multiply by x3.0 the output concentrations of the Atmotube the trend was much more similar (see graph below). On the other hand, Flow 2 was not able to keep up with the reference monitor. Flow’s (Yellow) line does not follow the reference monitor and I was unable to find any correlation.
Red: Atmotube Pro with amplified x3 PM10 output.
As the BAM PM2.5 measurements are being analysed in a lab right now in order to ensure accuracy by the state I will compare the result in a different post. They gave me an estimation of about a month.
Conclusion
It gives you a level of confidence to know that the little AQ monitor that you carry with you is able to reveal the truth about the air you breathe. Although the results are not perfect they can provide some general guidelines to the users.
Stay tuned for the final PM2.5 comparison, will Flow 2 have better PM2.5 measurements and will Atmotube Pro keep up?
Recently, I gave an inverted to BreezoMeter, which is a company dedicated to providing air quality data, pollen reports and fire alerts globally. It was a great honour to be able to share my thoughts on the subject of air pollution.
See The Air 