IoT-enabled air quality monitoring device: A low cost smart health solution

Air quality Monitoring provides raw measurements of gases and pollutants concentrations, which can then be analyzed and interpreted. Air pollution is a concern in many urban areas and is the major reason for respiratory problems among many people, monitoring the air quality may help many suffering from respiratory problems and diseases, and thereafter informing engineering and policy decision makers to improve the quality of air. Major contributor's air causing respiratory problems are i) Fine particles produced by the burning of fossil fuels (i.e. the coal, petroleum) ii) Noxious gases (sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide-CO, chemical vapors.) iii) Ground-level ozone (a reactive form of oxygen and a primary component of urban smog) iv) Volatile Organic Compounds (have a high vapor pressure at ordinary room temperature, formaldehyde-HCHO gas being major component) A prototype for a low cost indoor air monitoring device has been developed to measure the concentration of CO and HCHO gases, monitoring at a specified rate and communicating over cloud to notify to any wireless device when the threshold of these gases is reached. Initial plans included monitoring of additional CO2 and other Noxious gases. But, this could not be achieved due to restrictions on cloud traffic. Though the prototype can be extended and deployed across regions for high-fidelity emissions monitoring to explore the effects of anthropogenic and environmental factors on intra-hour air quality.