Air quality sensing to serve all citizens
With Sydney experiencing thirty-eight days of “very poor” air quality since November and NSW Health issuing fifteen health warnings since the start of the bushfire emergency, air quality concerns NSW residents now more than ever.
The NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE) operates an advanced and extensive network of air quality monitoring stations across NSW.
“The current air quality [monitoring] in New South Wales is done through a thorough system where you have monitoring stations scattered throughout the state, and each one is measuring the primary pollutants,” says Dr Tomonori Hu, NSSN Research Theme Leader.
These primary pollutants are ozone (O3), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO), sulphur dioxide (SO2), visibility, and fine particles (PM10 and PM2.5). The processed data is then published as the ‘Air Quality Index’ (AQI) for each pollutant on a rolling basis on DPIE website.
By using laser beams to detect particles in the air, researchers at the University of Sydney aim to achieve real-time measurements of particulate compositions.
“What we are doing at the University of Sydney is looking into particular matter sensors, using optical methods,” says Dr Tomonori Hu who leads the research project at the University of Sydney.
“This has been done for some time now, but one thing that hasn’t been done yet is measuring the composition of these particles.”
The next level of innovation in air quality sensing is real-time detection of the kind of particulates.
Funded by the NSW Office of Environment & Heritage (OEH), the team — Professor Ben Eggleton, Dr Tomonori Hu and Dr Alvaro Casas-Bedoya — have developed low-cost optical particle sensors that use light to detect particles in the air.
By building on existing technologies, the team have developed portable sensors that can be deployed in large arrays to provide more comprehensive information on air quality in real-time.
This air quality sensing technology leads to more accurate readings for particulates, thus enhancing the integrity of the collected air quality data over time.
Air-quality sensors also play a vital role in the narratives of smart cities. Natural and human factors increasingly pollute the air we breath resulting in acute demands for real-time, localised and accurate air quality information.
Smart cities equipped with advanced “urban IoT” systems connect infrastructure, people and vehicles to help us interact with the built environment more comfortably, making cities more dynamic, safe and liveable.
The innovative air quality sensing method developed at the University of Sydney leads to further miniaturisation of sensors that will fit inside devices like smartphones, enabling citizens to measure local air quality and feed that information into a mass network of deployed air quality sensors.
“In an ideal smart city you’ll have the data available to all citizens,” says Dr Tomonori Hu.
Media: Shahrzad Abbasi — 0466548145
Dr Tomonori Hu is an expert in mid-infrared fibre lasers and spectroscopy and is interested in the translation of academic technologies to industry. He leads a group at the University of Sydney working on optical sensor technologies related to measuring air quality.
Learn more about NSSN expertise in air quality sensing, integrated photonics and nano-scale sensors by contacting Dr Tomonori Hu on tomonori.hu@nssn.org.au