AQMesh: the most reliable air quality monitor?

Refinement and development of the AQMesh small sensor air quality monitoring system over many years, and through numerous global co-location comparisons, brings a wealth of unique benefits. As well as a range of comparison datasets across climates from the Middle East to Scandinavia, each AQMesh pod has always been subject to a comprehensive factory set-up, following best practise of co-location comparison with reference equipment.

The AQMesh onsite reference station means each sensor has been tested through a meaningful and rigorous quality control process before it leaves the UK factory. The sensitivity of each sensor to the target pollutant is measured against the reference equipment and sensors which show a response outside the defined range are rejected. Adjustments can also be applied to optimise consistency, precision and accuracy through AQMesh’s proprietary data processing algorithms.

At the AQMesh factory, a custom-built mobile enclosure houses climate-controlled reference/equivalence analysers sampling air from an ambient ‘cage’ which can hold up to 100 AQMesh pods at a time. As well as sensor characterisation, this allows pod-to-pod precision to also be evaluated at the same time. The reference equipment includes Thermo Scientific 42i for NO, NO2 and NOx, Thermo Scientific 43i for SO2, Ecotech Serinus 10 for O3, Ecotech Serinus 30 for CO as well as the industry standard FIDAS 200 for PM1, PM2.5, PM4 and PM10. The enclosure is maintained at a constant, consistent temperature of 18 +/-2 degrees centigrade all year round, and all analysers are serviced regularly and calibrated themselves before each sensor characterisation batch.

Since 2015, the electrochemical sensors used in AQMesh have gone through this ambient characterisation during manufacture as part of the stringent AQMesh quality assurance process, which also includes strict criteria for particulate matter (PM). This means every AQMesh pod out in the field to date has been through specific quality control measures to ensure the efficiency and reliability of each sensor in real-world conditions.

Access to their own reference station, and the ongoing development of AQMesh since it first commercially launched in 2012, has also enabled the team to continually review the product’s long-term performance. Baseline stability of AQMesh’s electrochemical sensors has been proven over many years of independent global co-location trials against certified reference equipment.

Another benefit that AQMesh brings to the table is its low cost of ownership, as pods require little to no ongoing maintenance - it is simply recommended that the electrochemical sensors are replaced as standard every two years. And those sensors will have, of course, undergone the same thorough characterisation and quality control as the ones each pod first came with.

This combination of long-standing factory “calibration”, extensive global co-location comparison field testing now spanning over eight years in real, ambient conditions across a range of environments and climates, and a number of other unique benefits means AQMesh is arguably the most reliable and accurate small-sensor air quality monitoring system available on the market today.

For more information on how AQMesh can support your air quality monitoring requirements please click here.