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Two AQMesh pods were used to measure NO, NO2, O3 and CO during May and June 2017 at Upplands Motor Stockholm AB car dealership in Sweden, located on the highway between Stockholm city centre and Arlanda airport.

AQMesh has been measuring ozone (O3) using small sensors since 2011 and the readings from the latest generation electrochemical sensor, using AQMesh v4.2.3 processing, as compared to co-located certified reference readings, consistently show an R2 of over 0.9 with an accuracy ±10ppb (20µg/m3).

AQMesh is now able to offer CO2 and H2S within its range of gas options for local air pollution monitoring. The NDIR CO2 sensor, which can be offered within a single AQMesh pod alongside five other gases out of NO, NO2, O3, CO, SO2 or H2S, as well as PM1, PM2.5, PM10, temperature, pressure and humidity, has been developed to deliver a higher performance than those typically used for indoor air quality monitoring.

It’s great to see the team at the Department of Atmospheric Chemistry, University of Cambridge using their AQMesh pods for another project, this time in Lagos, Nigeria and Yaoundé, Cameroon.

AQMesh is currently being used in a number of air quality monitoring initiatives by a range of users. Across the UK, for which today is its annual Clean Air Day campaign, there are a number of pods deployed outside schools, being used by ambulance services, installed at metal foundries and at railway stations.

Recent co-location comparison trials against certified reference equipment continue to prove AQMesh performance and reliability for localised air quality monitoring.

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association has found that long-term exposure to poor air quality can have the same damaging effect as smoking 20 cigarettes a day, with air pollution shown to be more dangerous than passive smoking.

Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) has purchased fifty AQMesh pods to measure key air pollution gases and particulate matter across fifty different zip code areas.

Cleves School in Weybridge, Surrey (UK) has used AQMesh to measure pollution at the primary school’s entrance.

A new paper published by the American Chemical Society (ACS Sensors) reviews the use of amperometric electrochemical gas sensors for monitoring inorganic gases that affect urban air quality. Written by John Saffell and Ronan Baron of Alphasense, the paper gives a full explanation of how the sensors work, how they have developed and a review of how they have been used.

Whilst not the only AQMesh pods still in regular use since the product was commercially launched in 2013, two AQMesh pods are still in use in Spain and demonstrate the long life of this small sensor air quality monitoring system.

Extensive research has shown that indoor air quality is often worse than outdoors. Closed system buildings trap harmful particles inside, and external air intakes can bring in more polluted air from outside.

Oxford City Council has been managing two AQMesh pods, supplied by Air Monitors Ltd, in order to monitor the impact the new Westgate centre is having on local air quality.

A UK local authority measured the difference in local air pollution levels when reopening roads that had previously been closed for social distancing purposes as part of Covid-19 mitigation efforts.

AQMesh will be exhibiting at the Air Quality & Emissions show in Telford on 12^th & 13^th October 2022, which this year is running as a live and virtual event. Focussing on air quality and emissions monitoring services, technology and instrumentation, the show offers a variety of industry experts all under one roof, including AQMesh at stand D10.

A UK train operator is carrying out an air quality baselining project at various points around some of the stations it manages. Monitoring using diffusion tubes or passive sampling has been used around rail infrastructure but the aim here is to use near real-time hyperlocal monitoring to show how pollution levels vary minute-by-minute and across spaces accessible by rail passengers.

Technology is critical to so many essential services during the current global COVID-19 crisis, but it is also allowing local air quality to continue to be monitored, in real-time, across the world. Small sensor air quality monitors such as AQMesh pods can use cloud data storage to ensure that air quality information is stored and accessible even when staff are not able to visit equipment.

AQMesh has been used in a project at the Port of Kiel, Germany, to measure emissions of nitrous oxides (NOx) and fine particulate matter (PM) around its cruise ship terminal.

Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) has been monitoring Minnesota’s air quality for a number of years, and it is generally considered to be good. However, MPCA wanted to understand how air pollution varies across small distances in order to minimise vulnerable communities’ exposure to harmful pollutants.

With local councils in England being encouraged to apply for a share of a £7m grant scheme dedicated to ‘reduce the impact of air pollution on public health’, the big question still remains – how can local authorities mitigate air pollution without carrying out hyperlocal monitoring to understand where the problem areas are and identify the pollution sources?

The AQMesh small sensor air quality monitoring system already offers flexibility of monitoring location – through independent power and communications – as well as high data quality and traceability.

The team at AQMesh continue to receive many enquiries from smart city initiatives and are concerned that integrators risk undermining entire projects by distributing meaningless or misleading air quality information.

The results of the 2019 AIRLAB Microsensors Challenge* were revealed in Paris on 21^st January and AQMesh was awarded the highest score for accuracy of all products presented for monitoring of outdoor air quality.

Smart city projects increasingly seek to include air quality measurements. If city authorities and the public are being asked to act based on air quality readings they must be credible.

At the RSC AAMG event on ‘Air Quality Monitoring: Evolving Issues and New Technologies’ Professor Rod Jones of the University of Cambridge presented a paper showing very encouraging results.

AQMesh has an impressive collection of global users and performance results measuring ambient air quality in applications ranging from traffic planning and urban hotspots to industrial fence line monitoring.

Refinement and development of the AQMesh small sensor air quality monitoring system over many years, and through numerous global co-location comparisons, brings a wealth of unique benefits.

A recent study using a network of five AQMesh pods has found that small sensor systems with a properly managed QA/QC process offer valuable air quality measurements, complementing data from expensive reference equipment.

2022 has seen AQMesh taken up as a proven and flexible air quality monitoring system by more users, including several in mining and construction. New users include mining operators in the Middle East and Africa, and construction companies in Italy, UK and Canada.

A wide range of industrial operators, including mining, construction, ports, landfill and the oil and gas industry, are looking more closely at the air quality on and around their operational sites. This is increasingly driven by legislation, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) ambitions, to establish a baseline, or to understand and manage potential pollution sources.

Data collected as part of the UKRI SPF Clean Air Program has proven that AQMesh out-of-the-box performance for PM2.5 exceeds new US EPA targets, with excellent results for PM1 and PM10 as well.

To illustrate this point, we can tell the story of 16 pods used in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam, Philippines and Mongolia. AQMesh was chosen for this project, funded by an international bank, coordinated by an international consultancy and procured through a UK distributor.

2023 is set to be a big year for AQMesh’s monitoring of particulate matter, with developments in both hardware and data processing offering improved accuracy across key PM fractions.

AQMesh Product Manager, Tom Townend, will be presenting at the EPA 2023 Air Sensors Quality Assurance Workshop on Wednesday 26^th July at 1pm ET (6pm BST). He will be speaking about our project in Minneapolis and quality control of large sensor networks measuring total volatile organic compounds (TVOC).

There is a major trend towards industrial operators including oil and gas, petrochemicals, construction, mining and transport – rail and ports, as well as roads – wanting to look closely at air pollution on and around their sites.

2022 marked 10 years of innovation and leadership from AQMesh. To highlight the team’s experience, ongoing forward-thinking and its commitment to pushing the capabilities of small sensor systems, here are the top 10 things AQMesh developed first and refined since it commercially launched in 2012.

The small sensor air quality monitoring world has moved on during the last three years and we have identified several new challenges and benefits relating to the continual development of air quality monitoring technology.