Optical particulate matter sensors in PM_2.5 measurements in atmospheric air

Abstract

Abstract. Monitoring systems are needed to obtain information about particulate matter (PM) concentrations and to make such information accessible to the public. Small, low-cost, optical sensors could be used to improve the spatial and temporal resolution of PM data. The paper presents results of collocated comparison of four low-cost PM sensors and TEOM analyser, conducted from 20-08-2017 to 24-12-2017 in Wrocław, Poland. Plantower PMS7003 and Nova Fitness SDS011 sensors proved to be the best in terms of precision and were linearly correlated with TEOM data. Alphasense OPC-N2 sensors exhibited only moderate precision and linearity. Winsen ZH03A sensors had low repeatability between units and only one copy demonstrated good operation possibilities. All tested sensors had a bias in relation to PM2.5 concentrations obtained from TEOM.

Laboratory Comparison of Low-Cost Particulate Matter Sensors to Measure Transient Events of Pollution

“…This inter-model variability was also shown for real indoor pollution events across eight sensors in Zou et al [39]. Similar results were found for low-cost sensors in the outdoor environment in Badura et al [40], where a strong linear relationship to TEOM measurements was recorded for most of the sensors tested. Individual field calibration of the sensors may be required and a greater understanding of the effect of prevailing conditions on sensor response must be developed to address this issue.…”

“…The sensors' response, at a 10 s sampling period, to spikes of pollution lasting ≈1 min was monitored, with a PM 2.5 median peak concentrations <40 µg/m 3 , from two different sources of pollution. Such peaks are similar to measurements undertaken under outdoor conditions by these sensors [35,40] and may inform regarding the potential and limitations of these sensors for outdoor deployments. This is especially pertinent for their use as personal exposure monitors or for mobile applications and especially to assess their capacity to track sources of pollution.…”

“…These models have been selected due to their frequency of use in air quality monitoring studies and for their compact size and price which makes them suitable for large scale deployments. The Plantower PMS5003 has been widely studied [32,35,40,43,45,50,51]. The Alphasense OPC-R1 is a lower cost and lower size version of the OPC-N2 which is widely used and studied [33,35,40,52,53].…”

“…The Plantower PMS5003 has been widely studied [32,35,40,43,45,50,51]. The Alphasense OPC-R1 is a lower cost and lower size version of the OPC-N2 which is widely used and studied [33,35,40,52,53]. To the best of the authors knowledge, the Honeywell HPMA115S0 has only been characterised by a limited number of studies [35] and the Novafitness SDS018 and the Sensirion SPS030 have not been characterised in the literature.…”

Field performance of a low-cost sensor in the monitoring of particulate matter in Santiago, Chile

“…In both of these locations, R 2 above 0.85 was observed for the correlations between the PM 2.5 averages informed by the SDS011 and standard optical instruments. Results reported by field tests conducted in environments with higher RH due to the influence of oceanic climates, such as Wrocław, Poland, (Badura et al 2018) and Oslo, Norway (Liu et al, 2019) suggest that SDS011 can reach modest to robust correlations in high-humidity ambient as well (R 2 0.55-0.86; Table 3).…”