The increase of sensors for air quality monitoring on the market led the national agencies (Ministry in charge of the environment, the LCSQA and the authorized associations for air quality monitoring - AASQA) to study the reliability of these new devices. However, there is currently no national or European normative framework regulating their uses or giving the guideline to evaluate their performances against reference measurement systems. In this context, the LCSQA carried out the first national sensors’ field evaluation for gas and particulate matter, used as fixed measurements for air quality monitoring in France (Directive EU 2008/50/CE).
This work was held under real conditions on an urban site from the beginning of January until mid-February 2018. The objective was to set-up various devices in order to evaluate their abilities to measure the main pollutants of interest for ambient air: nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ozone (O3) and particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10).
Organized by IMT Lille Douai on the measurement station of its research centre, this study gathered a total of 16 participants and 44 devices (all specimen of the same system included) from which 17 have different design or come from different origins (France, The Netherlands, United-Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Poland, USA). The systems were provided by manufacturers, retailers or volunteer users acting within the national monitoring network (AASQA and LCSQA members). Thus, the systems provided had different historical uses.
The data treatment has been carried out by Ineris by comparison with reference instruments. More than 70 million of 1-minute data, generated by the whole set of sensor systems, have been treated using a specifically developed method. Together with metrological performances, a particular attention has been drawn on parameters such as implementation, battery autonomy, portability, data transfer reliability (GSM, Wifi, Bluetooth, wire, etc.), the user-friendliness of the user interface.
This first report describes the methodology developed together with a synthesis of the results for NO2, O3 and PM2.5. A second report, more detailed, will be published later and will include PM10 evaluation and the whole set of evaluation sheet based on data, assessment butterfly chart for each individual system and pollutant, time series, correlation plot and finally advantages and drawbacks for each pairs system/pollutant.
