Mobile monitoring of air pollution using low cost sensors to visualize spatio-temporal variation of pollutants at urban hotspots

Abstract This paper deals with the development of a smart personal air quality mon- itoring system (SPAMS) for real time air quality monitoring. The commer- cially available low-cost CO, NO2, O3, PM, temperature (T) and humidity (RH) sensors along with the microcontroller and GPRS were integrated in SPAMS. The developed SPAMS was calibrated in the laboratory and vali- dated through field measurements. Field measurements were performed by walking on footpaths and travelling in the bus during various times of a day and different days in a week at selected locations in Chennai city, India. Re- sults indicated that the PM2.5 concentration was highest in busy traffic site (mean = 22.7 ± 8.45 μg/m3) and lowest in urban background (mean = 9.3 ± 5.75 μg/m3). Whereas, the CO concentration was lowest at beach road (mean = 0.26 ± 0.01 ppm). Not much variation was observed in the average concentrations of NO2 and O3. On the other hand, while travelling in buses, higher concentration of CO and NO2 were observed during the morning and evening periods due to the peaking traffic flow. On contrary O3 concentration was found to be highest during afternoon due to photochemical reactions.

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