University of Birmingham researchers have developed a low-cost means of measuring indoor air quality in schools—creating new opportunities to safeguard the health of young people. The researchers installed air pollution sensors in three classrooms at a Cardiff high school, measuring particulate matter (PM), which is the most important pollutant for human health. The sensors allowed researchers to pinpoint the sources of air pollution within the classrooms and whether they came from inside or outside the room.
Sensor data showed that 93-98% of tiny PM 1 pollutants originated outside the building. This contribution decreased as particle size increased, with outdoor sources accounting for 74-89% of PM 2.5 and 19-40% of larger PM 10 particles respectively.
In addition to outdoor sources, they discovered that differences in classroom PM concentration related to differences in lesson activities and frequency, whether the room was carpeted or hard-floored, and the classroom's location within the school. Published in Indoor Air this is the first paper published by McCall MacBain Clean Air Fellows studying for the master's degree in Air Pollution Management and Control at the University of Birmingham. Co-author and Clean Air Fellow Owain Rose commented, "Indoor air quality is becoming one of the most important factors for public health , as people spend far more time indoors compared to outdoors.
By combining low-cost air pollution sensors with algorithms to determine pollution sour.