From left to right, are: Yvonne Sorovacu, Protect PT; Paul Dille, CREATE Lab; Nathan Deron, EHP; Ned Mulcahy, GASP.
Members of GASP, CREATE Lab, Environmental Health Project, and Protect PT recently got their first look at new air monitoring technology that the groups will be deploying over the coming months in various locations as part of EPA grants the groups received.
The equipment – called an S-Pod – is capable of reporting levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the air through the use of a photoionization detection (PID) sensor.
For those of us who aren’t air quality nerds: An additional and very important feature is that these units let users take samples of the air for further analysis when VOC levels get bad. Best of all, these little machines work wirelessly and remotely.
From left to right: Nathan Deron, EHP, with solar panel, Yvonne Sorovacu, Protect PT, with summa canister, Ana Hoffman, CREATE Lab, with S-Pod, Ned Mulcahy, GASP, also with summa canister.
The parts pictured here with a few of the soon-to-be experts belong to our friends at Allegheny County Clean Air Now (ACCAN) and will be deployed soon as part of the work they are doing outside the aforementioned EPA grants.
While the parts were in CREATE Lab’s actual lab, we got a chance to plug everything in, run through a few set-up tasks, and the like.
Thanks to ACCAN for letting us learn. Thanks to Jacob and Jason at Sensit, for helping us work through a few technical details. Thanks to the EPA for funding and immense effort in creating and fine-tuning the underlying technology over the years.
Editor’s Note: We will keep you posted as the monitoring project progresses. In the meantime, you can get all the details on the EPA-funded program here.