Monitoring air quality will soon become easier and cheaper.
WHO: Breathe Life – How Air Pollution Affects Your Body
Researchers have developed an open-source version of a low-cost, mobile pollution detector that will allow people to track air quality more broadly. Experts say air pollution is a growing problem and keeping track of the air quality in your area can help.
“Especially in densely populated urban environments, air quality changes block by block, primarily influenced by emitters like traffic and commercial kitchens,” Jake Reed Smith, a graduate researcher in mechanical engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, told Lifewire in an email interview. “The exposure to hyperlocal conditions can completely overwhelm the ‘baseline’ level of emissions that weather stations or government sources are likely to report. Here in Pittsburgh, industrial emitters are not always located near the county’s EPA-approved air quality stations, so personal devices are the only choice for individuals who want to know their exposure to pollutants.”
The World Health Organization estimates that air pollution contributes to more than 4 million premature deaths worldwide each year. Despite these alarming figures, air pollution isn’t always widely measured. MIT researchers say their mobile pollution detector, Flatburn, can be made by 3D printing or by ordering cheap parts. The researchers have now tested and calibrated it with existing, advanced machines. They are making public all the information about it: how to build, use and interpret the data.
