Air quality monitoring and control in school classrooms
Date
2022-05
item.page.datecreated
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
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
item.page.type
Capstone Project
item.page.format
Keywords
indoor air pollution, classroom pollutant monitor