Laboratory Chamber Evaluation of Flow Air Quality Sensor PM2.5 and PM10 Measurements

Abstract

The emergence of low-cost air quality sensors as viable tools for the monitoring of air quality at population and individual levels necessitates the evaluation of these instruments. The Flow air quality tracker, a product of Plume Labs, is one such sensor. To evaluate these sensors, we assessed 34 of them in a controlled laboratory setting by exposing them to PM10 and PM2.5 and compared the response with Plantower A003 measurements. The overall coefficient of determination (R2) of measured PM2.5 was 0.76 and of PM10 it was 0.73, but the Flows’ accuracy improved after each introduction of incense. Overall, these findings suggest that the Flow can be a useful air quality monitoring tool in air pollution areas with higher concentrations, when incorporated into other monitoring frameworks and when used in aggregate. The broader environmental implications of this work are that it is possible for individuals and groups to monitor their individual exposure to particulate matter pollution.

Assessing the Accuracy of Air Quality Personal Exposure Monitors

“…For example, the PM2.5 R 2 values for PLF12 are 0.58 (1-min measurements for three weeks period in Table 2), 0.68 (1-min measurements for five days in Table 3), 0.75 (1-hr for five days). An earlier study that tested the same type of tools showed similar results [22]. In their study, they found that only three and four devices (out of 32) gave high precision (80 -100%) for PM2.5 and PM10, respectively.…”

“…There is an ever-growing number of studies that asses the accuracy of a suite of static air pollution sensors designed to be used in networks, but studies showing the performance of personal air quality sensors are much more limited despite their use, at scale, in measuring personal exposure. Plume Lab Flow has been developed as a PEM and recently evaluated in a laboratory setting [22]. Plume Lab Flow 2's performance has been reported by the South Coast AQMD, where they only compared three PLFs outdoors alongside a high reference-grade instruments [23].…”

Indoor particulate matter (PM) from cooking in UK students' studio flats and associated intervention strategies: evaluation of cooking methods, PM concentrations and personal exposures using low-cost sensors

“…35 Research conducted in 2022 examined 34 Flow sensors in comparison to a Plantower A003 reference at John Hopkins University with R 2 values reported for PM 2.5 and PM 10 of 76% and 73%, respectively. 36…”

“…35 Research conducted in 2022 examined 34 Flow sensors in comparison to a Plantower A003 reference at John Hopkins University with R 2 values reported for PM 2.5 and PM 10 of 76% and 73%, respectively. 36 To conrm the accuracy of the Flow2 measurements for our work, two Flow2 sensors were placed in an office in the Biosciences building at the University of Birmingham with colocation of the reference instrument Fidas® 200 (Palas GmbH), a continuous ambient air quality monitoring system, to assess the inter-Flow2 variation. In line with similar research, 37,38 the coefficient of variation (CV), which determines the variation among the sensors, the relative precision errors (RPE), which is averaged to indicate the precision of the sensors, and the accuracy (Acc) by comparisons between Flow2 and Fidas® 200 were calculated and linear regressions (using SPSS; IBM version 28) were chosen to yield the R 2 correlation between the two Flow2 sensors and between each Flow2 sensor and the Fidas® 200 reference instrument (see ESI, Text S3, eqn (S1)-(S3) for details †).…”

Bridging the environment and neurodevelopment for children’s health: Associations between real-time air pollutant exposures and cognitive outcomes

“…Calibration of these tools within this sensors is executed via machine learning processes enabled through internet connection to the sensor. 3 The accuracy, precision and overall performance of Flow sensors has been investigated by and reported in Crnosija et al (2022) , which found that these sensors are able to detect changes in ambient PM 2.5 and PM10 reliably. Specifically, a coefficient of determination of 0.76 ( R 2 = 0.76) was obtained for the relationship between minute-by-minute PM 2.5 exposure in 32 Flow devices and a Plantower air sensor, indicating how well the average PM 2.5 measured by the Flow devices predicts that measured by the Plantower air sensor ( Crnosija et al, 2022 ).…”