We hear this question regularly, from dust suppression systems in mines to filtering systems in enclosed railways or ventilation systems in road tunnels.
A good quality small sensor air quality monitoring system should last 10 years or more, and of course certified monitoring stations (reference, FRM, FEM) should last much longer.
“How many air quality monitors do I need?” is a question we regularly hear, and the easy responses – “it depends”, “how big is your budget?” – are not very helpful. To give a better idea, it will depend on all these factors.
We have a little competition going on between our customers, even if they don’t know it: who can present us with the challenge of the most remote operation for continuously monitoring air quality.
Go for all of them! We often come across customers who are agonising over which sensor system – or even which technology – to use and we suggest a hybrid network.
Communities and industry are monitoring air quality around the same areas, so they both want the same thing, right? Er, no, not really ..
So how do you do it? Many presentations at the recent ASIC conference revolved around calibration of small sensor air quality systems, including that given by AQMesh Technical Business Development Manager, John Downie.
Requests to measure hydrogen sulphide (H2S) in ambient air at unthinkably high levels seem to be at odds with our efforts to detect and report single-figure parts per billion H2S emissions. So, why are we asked for such high ranges?
Did you know that we have always been part of wider group of companies, offering a portfolio of emissions, leak detection and gas stream monitoring products, software and services, specialising in methane?
There’s no doubt that small sensor systems can have an advantage over their cumbersome reference station cousins – in terms of maintenance requirements. We are often asked about ‘service’ requirements for our pods and the honest answer is that the default position, in normal working conditions, is ‘none’. However ..
Our pods continue to be pretty popular among environmental and engineering consultancies, both here in the UK and further afield, so we asked some of them what appeals to them most about AQMesh. We were pleasantly surprised by the range of responses we received although there were a number of recurring themes.
We have some thoughts here at AQMesh about the common features of successful, well-run small sensor air quality monitoring projects. This is our list, but we’d love to hear your ideas.
Is it normal to get excited about a Publicly Available Standard? For us it feels like a long time coming, and this first step on the long road towards an ISO standard for small sensor air quality monitoring is very welcome.
We installed an AQMesh pod on a rural road to see the impact of local road closures and increased traffic but we left it in place and have been able to monitor how the air quality changes from autumn to winter.
Everyone loves holidays, whether Christmas or anything else, right? So what’s special about ‘air quality’ people? What we get so excited about are ‘free’ experiments, where distinct changes in activity help to peel away the layers of air pollution measured.
Hyperlocal air quality monitoring promises to fill in the gaps between sparse reference stations – great, lots more measurements. And each of your lovely small sensor monitoring stations can measure a dozen or more pollutants and environmental conditions – even better. Or is it?
It isn’t easy to monitor air quality on or around a mining site: dusty, big machinery, water spray to suppress dust – the list goes on. But you may have to, because of a site permit or some other sort of compliance requirement. That’s the main reason we have seen, but other reasons include baselining and for health and safety.
This a great report, full of common sense and helpful advice, applicable globally, particularly where air quality monitoring is currently limited. Limited by budgets, logistics, and many factors discussed so eloquently at the ASIC Ghana conference last month.
Or how many air quality measurement points do I need? Annoying as it is, the answer is ‘it depends’.
First of all, you can’t calibrate using bottled gas, as with reference analysers. Even if you can create a chamber or manifold to pump gases through, electrochemical gas sensors do not respond in the same way to single, dry gases as they do to mixed gases in an ambient environment.
Watching the ASIC Ghana conference presentations, it is striking that the same issues come up, whether monitoring in Africa, Europe or America.
We know from our customers that they are often monitoring for a particular air quality project, although some are monitoring on an ongoing basis. So why do they always want to buy equipment rather than rent it?