Assessing COVID Risk and More with Air Quality Monitors

Wed, 13 Oct 2021 03:45:00 GMT
Scientific American - Technology

The consumer devices track pollutants as well as CO2—a proxy for potentially virus-laden human...

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us have grown more acutely aware of the air we breathe.

Some weather forecasts now routinely include outdoor air quality measures-but most Americans spend about 90 percent of their time indoors, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

In order to counter airborne health threats at home or in the office, more people are now tracking contaminants with handheld air quality monitors, and the market for such devices is expected to reach $4.6 billion worldwide by 2027.

Air quality monitors debuted in the 1930s and were once bulky machines that needed trained experts to run them, but they have since become far smaller, less expensive and more user-friendly.

Modern ones assess air quality by directing a laser through a small box and determining how much of its light is scattered by particles and other substances in the air.

Tracking this type of pollutant is especially useful for "Sensitive individuals living in the household, as well as individuals living pretty far away from any monitoring network," says Woody Delp, lead author of a 2020 study of air quality monitors.

"If it's people, then we can assume that the aerosols are going up as well." If the levels drop, that suggests the room's ventilation system is successfully replacing stale air with air that is fresher and contains less carbon.

There are a dozens of reasonably priced air quality monitors on the market, and most measure particulate matter, VOCs, carbon dioxide or some combination of the three.

California's independent South Coast Air Quality Management District, which has extensively tested particle and gas detectors through its AQ-SPEC program, offers information about available types of monitors.

Many monitoring devices display the measured PM2.5 reading and also translate it into an Air Quality Index score and color scheme.

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