Air quality monitoring and control in school classrooms

Date

2022-05

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Abstract

Studies show that humans spend most of their time indoors, where they are likely to get exposed to air pollutants. Students are more susceptible as most of their time is spent indoors, mainly in classrooms. Health implications due to pollutant exposure in classrooms include headaches, fatigue, and body irritations which affect students' concentration levels and hence their academic cognition. Health implications of pollutant exposure can also be aggravated by environmental conditions such as temperature and the number of class occupants. Sadly, it is hard for students to distinguish between polluted and clean air until their bodies react to exposure. The desire to set a safe, clean study area for students inspired an engineering design to monitor and apply smart means to control pollutant concentration. The system consists of indoor carbon dioxide and temperature sensors and an outdoor particulate matter (PM) sensing element. When indoor air quality is poor, the system checks outdoor PM levels. Depending on the levels, the system opens or closes windows or sends an email message to the person in charge for manual intervention. The system also controls the fan depending on the temperature levels. A small box-shaped house with a sliding window attached to an actuator was constructed for a quick demo. The system was then checked on different carbon dioxide levels, PM, temperature, and recorded responses.

Description

Capstone Project submitted to the Department of Engineering, Ashesi University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, May 2022

Keywords

indoor air pollution, classroom pollutant monitor

Citation

DOI