Calibration of newly developed indoor air dust monitoring sensor by Tzoa Canadian Company
Student name: Ms Ayushi Babuta
Guide: Dr Suresh Jain
Year of completion: 2018
Host Organisation: University of British Columbia
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Dr Steven Rogak and Dr Alberto Baldelli
Abstract: The rising concern for indoor air quality have led to the development of the portable low cost sensors to assess the size and particulate matter concentration with high resolution. Tzoa, Canadian company has recently developed an inexpensive small sensor for collection of indoor dust particles using small flows which makes it challenging to minimize particle losses and collect sufficient material for chemical analysis. The study was conducted to carry out the calibration of newly developed sensor placed inside the designed enclosure by performing different experimental set ups for zeroing of optical noise value, flow calibration and particle loss determination. Further indoor dust sampling was carried out in a residential home and aerosol laboratory to identify the major sources of indoor air pollution. The PM deposited on filters were characterised using X-ray Fluorescence technique. Cooking was found to be the major indoor source of pollution having highest mass concentration of 80.4μg/m3. The sensor calibration results indicated high optical noise value in the range of 3600-4700 from the sensor placed inside the designed enclosure due to defect in photodiode that needs to be diagnosed by the company.
