Solving the air quality monitoring dilemma.

The British Institute of Air Quality Management (IAQM) recently organised a webinar in which Bruno Beloff from the company South Coast Science examined the thorny issue of whether low-cost air quality monitors are able to offer data of sufficient accuracy and reliability to be comparable with reference grade monitors.

Bruno explained that his company was established in 2016 to offer a common digital front-end for electrochemical sensors, together with an open data management framework. Early field work was conducted in cooperation with academia, research organisations and the United Nations, and Bruno emphasised the importance of this field work in the development of monitors that are suitable for real-world applications.

Low-cost air quality monitors employ electrochemical sensors for gas measurements and optical particle counters for the measurement of particulate fractions. These sensors are provided by Alphasense, which in the case of the gas sensors, have demonstrated an ability to measure concentrations to within +/- 5 ppb. “The Alphasense sensors are ubiquitous in the market,” explains South Coast Science Commercial Director David Johnson. “Without reliable sensors, it would be impossible to develop effective algorithms, so it was important for us to partner with Alphasense from the outset.”

Alphasense sensors are highly repeatable in the laboratory, but the outputs from electrochemical sensors are affected by a number of environmental factors, such as temperature and humidity, and in some cases interfering gases. Working in different locations around the world, South Coast Science therefore employed machine learning techniques to improve and speed up the process of algorithm development. As a consequence, the company was able to develop monitors that were able to apply these refined algorithms in real-time and within the monitors themselves; delivering data with extremely low levels of interference or noise.

There are no formally recognised performance standards for low-cost air quality monitors, so it is incumbent on instrument developers to conduct trials in a variety of different environments to validate the claims made on websites and in brochures. South Coast Science has therefore conducted over three years of co-location studies with reference air quality monitoring stations provided by Ricardo. This work has demonstrated a high degree of correlation with data from the reference stations (see graph). In addition, there is an MCERTS performance standard for indicative ambient particulate monitors, and Bruno is hopefully that Praxis will be the first low-cost monitor to achieve the required level of performance without the need for a heated sample inlet (to remove moisture).

South Coast Science launched the ‘Praxis’ air quality monitor in 2017, and Bruno explained that the open data management framework provided by these monitors means that users, if they wish, can use both raw and corrected data in order to evaluate the algorithms.

The Praxis/Urban offers sensing for gases (CO, H2S, NO, NO2, O3, SO2, CO2, VOCs) and particulates (PM1, PM2.5 and PM10). The device supports multiple analysis techniques including any sampling rate and real-time data access. Consistent device function is possible within a broad range of climatic conditions. This includes continuous operation for up to two hours in the event of external power loss, as well as a 24 month Warranty.

One of Bruno’s first presentation slides showed a small Praxis device fitted to the top of a large reference air quality monitoring station. This image, Bruno explained, clearly demonstrated the main advantages of low-cost monitors, because it showed how easy it is to install them almost anywhere. This flexibility means that low-cost monitors can be installed at pollution hot-spots, alongside developments or where remediation measures need to be assessed.

Summarising Bruno says: “Our development work has achieved remarkable results in that we have managed to create monitors which provide data that correlates very well with reference monitors, but at a fraction of the cost. Nevertheless, we do not believe that low-cost monitors should replace reference monitors; we believe that they should supplement them, by enabling the creation of monitoring networks that measure air quality in the locations that matter the most.”

 @_Enviro_News @IAQM_UK #Alphasense #SouthCoastScience #Environment 

Monitoring airbourne particles an NO.

The Praxis/OPCube from South Coast Science, just launched clearly meets market demand as the first production batch has already sold. It has proven popular with customers looking for monitoring of ONLY airborne particles (PM1, PM2.5 & PM10) and NO, where raw as well as corrected sensor data is available to customers for validation purposes.

Britain's upcoming Environment Bill is set to adopt the World Health Organisation target for PM2.5 as a legal limit in the country and the Praxis/OPCube is an ideal, low-cost monitoring instrument to aid with compliance. It is well suited for air quality screening applications during episodes of temporary construction, on fence lines or longer-term deployment in urban environments.

As with its big brother, thePraxis/Urbann, high-quality Alphasense sensors provide proven sensing technology. It can also be deployed in a high-density monitoring network using the same data infrastructure and sampling rates as the Praxis/Urban so that in terms of accuracy and reliability, the two devices operate in the same league.

The Praxis/OPCube has a single gas sensor combined with a particulate monitor, which is sufficient for most environmental health contexts. The obvious benefit for the construction industry or other urban monitoring applications is that customers do not pay for redundant functionality or infrastructure.

As with the Praxis/Urban, the units are designed to update remotely, meaning the device firmware stays current throughout its lifetime and therefore ongoing maintenance costs are minimal.

Housings ready for assembly

Product specification:
• Robust - designed for long-term outdoor deployments
• Compact: 154x154x130mm, 2kg
• Local MicroSD card data storage and 4G mobile comms as standard
• Equipped with sensor for gas (selectable) + particulates + T + H
• Battery back-up in the event of power loss
• Same open-source design and data dashboard as Praxis/Urban

#SouthCoastScience #Environment, 

Air Quality Monitoring for Local Authorities.

Legislation and increasing public scrutiny are focusing on the roles and responsibilities of local authorities in air quality management. In 2019 The Guardian (a British daily newspaper) published an article stating that five people die each week in Bristol as a result of high levels of air pollution and that “83% of reporting zones in the UK had illegal levels [of air pollution]”.

Praxix monitor on post in London 

Stemming from our partnerships in academia and research, South Coast Science adopts an open and pragmatic approach, which also turns out to be cost-efficient in the long term," says David Johnson of South Coast.  "Our commitment through our Praxis product line is to provide devices that are manufactured in the UK and operate exactly as you would expect over their lifetime.

"The DNA that runs through our products was not ‘injected’ in a workshop environment, it was learnt over years of testing and retesting in some of the most hostile environments imaginable. It has resulted in robust products that frequently surpass our customer’s briefs for evidence-based policymaking."

As air quality monitoring equipment becomes more sophisticated yet more affordable, local air quality management faces more choices on how to deploy monitoring networks. With public money at stake, decisions about data quality, value for money and ongoing budgets can become contentious.

Public procurement requires a clear statement not only of ‘up and running’ costs, but also the total costs of ownership (TCO) for the life of the products. TCO is not a new idea, but how it applies to air quality monitoring technology is often opaque to non-experts. What potential hidden costs should a consumer be looking out for?

1/ Firmware updates Like a car, some equipment starts to age the second you drive off the forecourt. For air quality monitoring, each device runs its own onboard firmware (a kind of software that is pre-installed and allows the device to operate). Firmware is constantly subject to updates to keep the product current, particularly for communications compatibility, so you need to know-how updates will happen. Send devices back to the manufacturer, or schedule an on-site maintenance visit? Are there extra charges for this? Or when updates are due, will they simply be a hindrance and so never happen, resulting in otherwise robust devices being quickly out of date? A better option - over-the-air firmware updates that are included in your initial purchase price. 2/ Ongoing Maintenance Costs Getting someone to each device in your network for maintenance can be non-trivial. Have you considered the cost of maintenance per device, replacement sensors, time and effort, training costs, plus potential device downtime? Even if maintenance is included in the purchase price, will it be scheduled and actioned or will it end up more expedient to replace units when they eventually stop functioning? The best option is to choose devices that more than meet the brief and which are robust enough to handle the most extreme weather conditions with minimal on-site intervention. As a practical example, the United Nations state this as a non-negotiable requirement for devices supplied by South Coast Science as part of their environmental programme. 3/ Remote Diagnostics Despite scheduled maintenance or robust devices that operate out-of-the-box, sometimes unexpected things happen that may interrupt device function. Have you assessed the risks and impact of device outage on your project? How would this be picked up? The most desirable option by far is an automatic diagnostic service that flags devices that aren’t functioning as expected within minutes of the error occurring, allowing appropriate action to be taken. This can be delivered using the existing cloud-infrastructure typically provided as part of a commercial air quality monitoring service, as South Coast Science demonstrates with its Praxis monitors.

Trust and accountability from your manufacturer
Choosing the right solution for a project is about more than ticking off a list of individual features. Hidden costs can come in the form of maintenance needs; devices not meeting the expected life-span or loss of critical data that impacts the credibility of your reporting.

Other sources of hidden costs may be ongoing subscriptions that aren’t made clear upfront, for example, is access to a cloud-based dashboard included in the purchase price, or is it an ongoing monthly extra? What about if you need to add users later - does that come at a price?

#southcoastscience #Environment

Air quality in construction.

Praxis/Urban units are part of a solution from South Coast Science, which allows contractors to meet air quality monitoring requirements during construction and roadworks in town and city centres.

Monitor on construction hoarding
(Adrian Thiedeman, EM-Monitors)

All local authorities in London have declared air quality management areas (AQMA's) that cover their entire borough. The control of dust and emissions during construction projects is now a requirement in London boroughs and for many City Councils across Britain.

As a result, under Section 61 of the Control of Pollution Act 1974, construction or roadworks contractors must set out plans for air quality monitoring and dust management in order to gain consent for the works. Noise and vibration management also falls under Section 61.

Praxis/Urban units are able to offer a reliable, robust solution ‘out of the box’ to monitor:

• Particulates: PM10, PM2.5, PM1
• Gases: (4 x selectable)
• Temperature, relative humidity
• Location (GPS)

Data is securely transferred to customers in real-time and accessed via any internet-enabled device, wherever they are in the world. This means data can easily be viewed using a smartphone or tablet. Data is securely stored in the cloud and device diagnostics and updates are made remotely, reducing the need for visits to site for either maintenance or calibration of the units.

For the end-user, this really is a plug and play solution, leaving them to concentrate on the construction project without getting bogged down in the details of compliance.

South Coast Science works with EM-Monitors, whose monitoring and testing services include the supply of Praxis/Urban devices to industry as well as training. They also work with consultants, manufacturers and end-users to understand their application and provide the best monitoring solutions in a number of fields including stack, water and biogas.

“Our air quality customers need systems that give precise, accurate and reliable results that can be relied upon to truly represent the actual conditions on-site. The Praxis/Urban delivers all of this,” says Adrian Thiedeman, EM-Monitors.

#southcoastscience #Environment #Pauto #EM-Monitors

Air quality data and connectivity and information recogntion.

South Coast Science has been shortlisted in the Information, Data and Connectivity category for its partnership with Ricardo Energy & Environment.  

The company operates on the principle that air quality data must be validated in the field, not in the lab. Validation in the field requires more research time and expertise than a lab-based exercise, therefore it’s tempting to sidestep extensive field testing. Which begs the question - is it really such a big deal how the data is validated? 

In short, yes! Consumer confidence and the future of the industry depends on it. Low-cost air quality monitoring is a nascent industry and to really gain confidence in the market and therefore traction, the quality of the data output must be assured. Instruments must produce data proven to be accurate, repeatable and reliable across a wide range of environmental conditions. 

Air quality can be a contentious issue, therefore confidence in the data must be high and (crucially!) visible to all stakeholders to engage a local community, drive behaviour change and support effective decision making in a commercial environment.

The clear need for validation with field data doesn’t, however, reduce the scale of such an undertaking. This is where partnership with global engineering and environmental consultancy Ricardo has played a key role in developing robust data.

South Coast Science follows this open approach to product development. It’s a pragmatic response to the need for transparency to build trust in the market. It also makes sense to collaborate with an independent expert to test and validate (relatively) new technology and it pays dividends in understanding customer requirements, dividing the effort and sharing the rewards.

The rewards of the collaboration so far? A repeatable and field-tested validation algorithm. Customers using Praxis devices have access to raw sensor values, as well as the corrected data. They can be confident of the results returned by using an error correction model tested in locations worldwide and verified by experts in their field. 

This ongoing validation work puts South Coast Science’s devices in an excellent position to lead the way in preparation for upcoming air quality standards. This would have been impossible to achieve without an ongoing collaboration with Ricardo, Alphasense and others like the United Nations Environment Programme.  Openness truly is the key to innovation and the support from organisations like ‘The Engineer Magazine’ through the Collaborate to Innovate Awards underscores this point.

#southcoastscience #Environment #Pauto @RicardoMedia

Air quality monitoring.

The latest product from South Coast Science, the Praxis/OPCube, (due to launch Dec 2020), responds to the call for a compact monitor suitable for conducting air quality surveys or establishing baselines. It is a product destined for use in a ‘smart’ environment and it’s designed for pragmatic data gathering when roadside monitoring, or when undertaking local authority investigations. 

As with its big brother, the Praxis/Urban, high-quality Alphasense sensors provide proven sensing technology. The Praxis/OPCube can be deployed in a high-density monitoring network using the same data infrastructure and sampling rates as the Praxis/Urban, so that in terms of accuracy, reliability and deployment, the two devices operate in the same league. The Praxis/OPCube, however, is a smaller, lower cost device specifically designed to provide precisely what’s required in environmental health and smart city use cases. 

Product development at South Coast Science operates on a philosophy of using the right tool for the job and avoiding unnecessary complexity or cost. This is essentially a scientific principle: the simplest explanation is most likely the right one and simpler theories are easier to test. Effective air quality monitoring is achieved by understanding the requirements of a particular task and identifying which measurements are necessary to produce valid, verifiable data. 

Data from multiple gas sensors is not required for every monitoring task, so why have a larger, more complex device than is needed? More components will require more maintenance and an unnecessary multiplication of your costs over your monitoring network. 

The Praxis/OPCube has a single gas sensor combined with a particulate monitor, which is sufficient for most environmental health contexts. The obvious benefit for customers is they do not pay for redundant functionality or infrastructure. 

Key device features for environmental health monitoring purposes:

● Robust - designed for long-term outdoor deployments ● Compact: 154x154x130mm, 2kg ● Local microSD card data storage and 4G mobile comms as standard ● Equipped with sensors for gas + pm + T + rH ● Battery back-up in the event of power loss ● Same open source design and data dashboard as Praxis/Urban

#southcoastscience #Environment

Office safety with COVID-19.

Tenants of serviced offices are starting to ask questions about environmental monitoring in their office spaces. Temperature, humidity, CO2 and ventilation levels are known to have an impact on comfort and even productivity of occupants of an office building. Add in safety concerns about COVID-19 transmission in the workplace and this becomes a trend that Facilities Managers need to be paying attention to now.

Yodit Stanton, CEO of Opensensors.com, has long been championing the use of data to optimise facilities management. She says “Leveraging office utilisation and environmental data is a way to efficiently aid office reopening and manage employees returning to work following COVID-19 lockdown.”

There are many other use cases for monitoring internal air quality: efficient management of reopening offices and reducing the likelihood of COVID-19 transmission is a high priority for the short to medium term. Over the longer term, efficiency is a key consideration for both Facilities Managers and workspace tenants and it’s an area where data monitoring and reporting will continue to grow in relevancy.

Internal Air Quality, or IAQ, depends on what’s going on outside the building as much as what’s going on inside. To optimise ventilation and filtration, you need to know what’s coming in from outside. For example, it’s a waste of energy to increase ventilation by circulating air from outside the building if that results in an overall increase in the polluted air inside. Equally, if you aren’t accurately monitoring air quality within the building (particulates, NO2, VOC’s temperature, humidity and CO2 are most relevant for office spaces) you run the risk of running HVAC systems when they’re not needed.

Optimising usage of the HVAC system pays dividends in many ways. Running the ventilation system when it’s not needed uses more energy. Understanding where in a building the problem areas are, means corrective measures can be applied in those areas only, rather than across the entire building and potentially wasting energy. A low carbon approach is increasingly important for businesses and individuals in our efforts to be conscious energy consumers. Wasted energy also means a direct increase in energy costs. There are also the less obvious costs that build up over time for HVAC maintenance. Greater usage leads to more frequent replacement of filtration equipment, for example, if wear on the air handling units can be reduced by increasing efficiency, this will lead to lower maintenance costs.

David Johnson, Sales Director at South Coast Science believes that with the increased availability of low-cost environmental sensors, the demand for real-time internal air quality monitoring will increase. He says “Because air is pervasive and always moving into and out of the building, to operate HVAC efficiently you need to monitor indoor air quality in real-time and with a high degree of accuracy. To do this, you must also understand the impact of what is coming in from outside. The two are very much linked and this is why we are developing both solutions for building managers and landlords to understand the effect this has on indoor air quality”.

Low cost sensors for environmental monitoring provide a solution for gathering the data needed to optimise systems, realise cost benefits and support energy efficiency in the workplace. South Coast Science is continuing to develop air quality monitoring systems that provide accurate and real-time data both inside and outside the building. When used in combination with occupancy sensors and a visual reporting dashboard, as offered by OpenSensors, a Facilities Manager can easily take action on the data, meet internal air quality targets and provide the evidence to their tenants.

@OpenSensorsIO #SouthCoast #HVAC #BAC

Quality air for Oxford!

OxAir, a partnership of independent experts dedicated to monitoring the quality of air in Oxford (GB), selected the handheld monitor to fulfil their mission of measuring air pollution from a ‘human’ perspective. Their goal is to obtain reliable data on air quality at any specific time and location in order to inform a robust air quality improvement strategy. Data collected will also equip individuals with information about their personal travel choices, forming part of OxAir’s socially inclusive collaboration with local stakeholders.

To achieve this goal, OxAir spent nearly two years searching for a sensor which would be reliable, portable and affordable, finally settling on the Praxis/Handheld from South Coast Science. The device has been developed for monitoring personal exposure to pollution, and essential to this is the ability to gather spatial and temporal variations in air quality via the array of built-in sensors.

Additionally, while many lower-cost products are capable of measuring particulate only, the Praxis/Handheld is equipped with an electrochemical NO2 sensor from Alphasense, as well as those for temperature and humidity.

Jake Backus, Project Leader, OxAir, (Managing Director, Empathy Sustainability Ltd.) said, “It turns out that measuring air quality is much more complex than most people imagine! We want to be at the forefront of reliable, portable and affordable sensor technology in order to support behaviour change and public policy.”

OxAir equipped members of the public with the device, which can easily be carried on a backpack, and used it to collect air quality information throughout the day and across the city. The data was then transmitted for analysis either via a hot-spot from the user’s phone or automatically downloaded when the device reconnected to WiFi. This has enabled OxAir to collect granular data not only about background air quality levels in Oxford but also specific levels of NO2 and particulates in the air at any given time and place across the city. As Jake explains, “This is important because human exposure to air pollution is not based on static equipment averages. Typically we are exposed to pollution at its peaks, e.g. while commuting and going to school during rush hour. These peaks often exceed legal standards of air quality, despite recorded averages being within an acceptable range.”

David Johnson, Sales Director, South Coast Science has been very encouraged by the feedback on the OxAir Project, stating “Development of this product started way back with the development of our Praxis/Urban product for fixed air quality monitoring. The lessons we learned then about collocation and gathering of gas and particle data have been applied throughout the product range, and we are delighted to start sharing this with customers so they can enjoy the fruits of that work.”

The Praxis/ Handheld is currently in a limited beta, available to selected customers as an experimental device. Anticipated launch date Q4 2020.

@OxAirProject @whyrwenotgrnr #Environment #SCS

Air Quality Monitoring at 40°C below Zero!

Most people think of the Arctic as a highly pristine clean environment, but this is not always the case. During the long dark Arctic winter, the urban atmosphere can become extremely polluted. Indeed, at some point during the year, the remote Alaskan city of Fairbanks turns into the most polluted city in the whole of the US.

This is due to the very cold Arctic winter when emissions of gases and particles (such as from wood-burning stoves, traffic, power stations) can become trapped locally at ground level due to the very stable meteorological conditions, with poor vertical mixing. Concentrations of gases and particles thus become very high, exceeding air quality limits as set out in The Clean Air Act and managed locally by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. Fairbanks, Alaska is currently designated as a non-attainment area for PM_2.5 and a Maintenance Area for Carbon Monoxide.

In order to better understand these conditions, a research team was established to quantify air pollution in Fairbanks throughout the Arctic winter. Scientists Tjarda Roberts, Kathy Law, and Bill Simpson plus other experts from CNRS France research laboratories (LPC2E, LATMOS, …) and the University of Alaska (Fairbanks USA) are pursuing several objectives that can inform effective decision making to improve air quality. Specifically, to characterise local emission sources, understand the atmospheric processing of gases and particles and correlate the measurements of the atmospheric pollutants with observations of the local meteorology and boundary-layer conditions.

Tjarda Roberts explains, “for this, we needed reliable, automated instruments that could withstand the harsh Arctic winter conditions. We deployed two Praxis instruments from South Coast Science throughout the whole winter season (November 2019 to April 2020) to characterise gas and particle pollution at various sites across Fairbanks.

“The instruments measured CO, NO, NO2, Ozone, and size-resolved particles and operated autonomously throughout delivering high-resolution air quality data in real-time (via SIM card). The Praxis proved to be highly reliable under the extreme Arctic conditions, even as temperatures reached as low as -40 C.”

This work by Roberts et al. has an important contribution to make towards improving air quality and human health in the region. This isn’t a new problem. Back in 2018, the American Lung Association identified Fairbanks as the number one most polluted city for year-round particle pollution. This problem was compounded further last year by raging forest fires, reportedly degrading the air quality across most of the state.

Last winter's air measurement campaign* precedes a bigger international-effort on arctic wintertime atmospheric chemistry that is planned for this coming Winter in Fairbanks (unless delayed by Covid19), to which the US has committed significant funds in a project called ALPACA (Alaskan Layered Pollution And Chemical Analysis).

Where significant funds have been committed to assisting the understanding of air pollution, it is important that the outcomes provide value for money and support real, positive change. The high reliability of devices and measurements in this challenging environment creates robust data outputs. It also allows the researchers to concentrate on more sophisticated modelling. The incentives for change are made visible resulting in increased possibilities for action on air quality.

*Funded by the French National program LEFE (Les Enveloppes Fluides et l’Environnement), IPEV, Paris-OVSQ and Orléans Labex Voltaire.

#Environment  #South_Coast_Science @AlaskaDEC

Environmental impact of construction.

Croydon Council is leading British local authority monitoring of the impact of construction in their borough. With no less than 11 multi-million pound construction developments in progress at any one time, the Council is rightly concerned about maintaining environmental compliance.

Following agreement with local communities to make Croydon the most sustainable borough in London, the new development at Queen’s Square presents an opportunity to demonstrate this aspiration in action.

South Coast Science, in partnership with EMSOL, is supporting this council to manage the impact of construction machinery and traffic on local communities. The first step is to deploy real-time air quality monitoring devices. The Praxis/Urban was selected for its ability to establish where pollutants are reaching harmful thresholds.

The flexible data infrastructure of the Praxis allows easy aggregation with tagged asset and vehicle data, made available by EMSOL. It is therefore possible to deliver a real-time, highly location specific view of air quality at Queen’s Square.

The EMSOL Platform enables businesses to take control of air quality through targeted actions. The multi-site dashboard designed for Croydon Council that offers intuitive and powerful reporting. Robust integration between South Coast Science and EMSOL’s technologies delivers reports to Council engineers including; the nature of an emission breach, how intensive it was and where on site it occurred. All data gathering elements seamlessly input to the dashboard, delivering accurate, reliable insight that supports evidence-based action.

#Environment #SouthCoastScience @emsol_iot