Low- and Medium-Cost Sensors for Tropospheric Ozone Monitoring—Results of an Evaluation Study in Wrocław, Poland

Abstract

The paper presents the results of a 1.5-year evaluation study of low- and medium-cost ozone sensors. The tests covered electrochemical sensors: SensoriC O3 3E 1 (City Technology) and semiconductor gas sensors: SM50 OZU (Aeroqual), SP3-61-00 (FIS) and MQ131 (Winsen). Three copies of each sensor were enclosed in a measurement box and placed near the reference analyser (MLU 400). In the case of SensoriC O3 3E 1 sensors, the R2 values for the 1-h data were above 0.90 for the first 9 months of deployment, but a performance deterioration was observed in the subsequent months (R2 ≈ 0.6), due to sensor ageing processes. High linear relationships were observed for the SM50 devices (R2 > 0.94), but some periodic data offsets were reported, making regular checking and recalibration necessary. Power-law functions were used in the case of SP3-61-00 (R2 = 0.6–0.7) and MQ131 (R2 = 0.4–0.7). Improvements in the fittings were observed for models that included temperature and relative humidity data. In the case of SP3-61-00, the R2 values increased to above 0.82, while for MQ131 they increased to above 0.86. The study also showed that the measurement uncertainty of tested sensors meets the EU Directive 2008/50/EC requirements for indicative measurements and, in some cases, even for fixed measurements.

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