Monitoring on the Move

In line with the theme of the AQE Show’s Demonstration Arena, Air Monitors’ presence at the event will be dominated by a ‘Monitoring on the move’ theme.

Just as the demand for better air quality in towns and cities grows, public sector budgets are diminishing, so the need for better, more effective, lower cost monitoring has never been greater. The Air Monitors’ exhibition stands (No’s 3 & 4) and Workshop presentations at AQE 2015 will therefore feature the latest technologies for: improving spatial and temporal monitoring; reducing capital and operational costs, and improving data access.

Reference monitoring stations demand significant capital and operational costs, however, once installed and regularly serviced, they are capable of achieving high levels of sensitivity and accuracy, with high data capture rates. These stations are therefore essential for long term monitoring programmes and for checking the accuracy of lower cost monitors, such as the AQMesh pods which will feature heavily at AQE 2015.

Weighing less than 2Kg, AQMesh pods are completely wireless, using battery power and GPRS communications to transmit data for the five main air polluting gases to 'the cloud' where sophisticated data management generates air quality readings as well as monitoring hardware performance. The pods can be mounted anywhere and moved easily, helping to lower the cost of monitoring whilst offering a better opportunity to measure the air that people are breathing.

Air Monitors MD Jim Mills says that he is delighted with the performance of the AQMesh pods: “A trial in Glasgow for example has run two pods alongside a reference monitor as part of transport Scotland's sensor rotation project, and the NO2 readings are following the reference station very closely (see graph). A regression analysis shows R2 figures of 0.71 and 0.77 for the two pods against the reference station, and R2 is 0.96 when comparing the two pods with each other! Similar results are being produced elsewhere in the UK and in other European countries, so we are very excited about the potential for AQMesh.”

The AQMesh monitoring interval is user-selectable from 1 minute to 30 minutes, and is ideal for temporary or permanent installations in locations that previously would have been impractical.

In order to derive more detailed spatial and temporal air quality data, a faster monitoring rate would be necessary, and this will be available with the DUVAS (Differential Ultra Violet Absorption Spectrometer) DV3000; a portable, battery powered, multigas monitor. With high time-resolution and near reference monitor accuracy, the DV3000, which launches in June 2015, will enable air quality monitoring on the move - whilst mounted on a vehicle for example. The AQE Demonstration Arena will therefore feature a car, fitted with DUVAS monitoring system.

As a personal air quality monitor, the microAeth® is the world's first ever real-time, pocket-sized Black Carbon aerosol monitor. Able to operate continuously for up to 24 hours on a single battery charge, this palm-size instrument is small enough to be worn by a person, and will also be demonstrated by Air Monitors’ staff.

Ideally, mobile air quality monitors should be lightweight and battery powered, however, data collection should also be simple and reliable, so Air Monitors will also demonstrate Envirologger ‘cloud’ based data collection technology. The ‘Internet of Things’ provides significant opportunities for environmental monitoring, and demonstrations will include small, wireless carbon dioxide sensors that can be located (up to 80 of them) as much as 2 miles away from an Envirologger gateway.

The Air Monitors stand will also feature two major new toxic gas detectors: the Thermo TVA2020 FID/PID VOC detector and the innovative Honeywell SPM Flex Chemcassette® tape-based gas detector.

In addition to product demonstrations, Air Monitors will also run four free-to-attend workshops at AQE 2015:

1.    Industrial VOC Monitoring – Wednesday, Room 4, at 12 noon.

2.    The Internet of (Environmental) Things - Wednesday, Room 1, at 1:30pm.

3.    New Airborne Dust Monitoring Technologies, Thursday, Room 4, at 10am.

4.    AQMesh – Low Cost Ambient Air Monitor, Thursday, Room 2, at 12 noon.

The Air Monitors exhibition stand at AQE 2015 will also feature fixed air quality monitors. For example, offering customers a complete choice, a family of particulate monitors are available including the Thermo Scientific TEOM, the TEOM FDMS and the Thermo BAM, in addition to the new FIDAS (Fine Dust Analysis System) which provides additional information on both particle size distribution from 0.18 – 30 microns, and on particle number in each size range. FIDAS also provides continuous real-time simultaneous mass concentration measurements of TSP, PM1, PM2.5 and PM10 at lower operational costs.