Tag Archives: indoor air quality

Monitoring air pollution at home, at work, and in the car—the nano way

Meagan Clark, in an April 18, 2014  article for International Business Times, writes about a project in the EU (European Union) where researchers are working to develop nanotechnology-enabled sensors for air quality at home, at work, and in the car,

Poor indoor and outdoor air quality is linked to one in eight deaths worldwide or 7 million, making it the world’s most dangerous environmental health risk, according to a March [2014?] report by the World Health Organization.

That is the reasoning behind the European Union’s decision to fund a new nanotechnology project [IAQSENSE] that would allow people to gauge air quality real-time at home, work and in cars with low cost, mini sensor systems, the EU’s community research and development information service announced Friday [April 18, 2014].

“The control of indoor air quality and the related comfort it provides should have a huge societal impact on health, presence at work and economic-related factors,” Claude Iroulart, coordinator of IAQSENSE, said in a statement. …

The IAQSENSE homepage provides more details about itself,

The indoor air quality (IAQ) influences the health and well-being of people. For the last 20 years, there has been a growing concern regarding pollutants in closed environments and the difficulty in identifying these pollutants and their critical levels, without heavy, expensive equipment.

IAQSense aims to develop new nanotechnology based sensor systems that will precisely monitor the composition of the air in terms of both chemical and bio contaminants. This system will be miniaturized, low cost and adapted to mass production.

A major challenge consists of a gaz [sic] sensor system which must be at the same time low cost and highly sensitive and selective.  IAQSense relies on three patented technologies, of which one is based on surface ion mobility dynamics separating each gas component. Working like a spectrometer it allows high sensitivity fast multi-gas detection in a way never seen before.

IAQSense Project will characterize, monitor and improve indoor air quality in an innovative way.

The consortium is composed of 4 SMEs [small to medium enterprises[, 3 industrial companies and 3 research institutes. The project will last 3 years (01.09.2013 – 31.08.2016) and will deliver a complete sensor system.

The IAQSense research project has received funding from the European Community´s 7th Framework Programme under grant agreement n° 6043125.

As someone who has suffered from breathing problems from time to time, I wish them the best with this project .