Low- and Medium-Cost Sensors for Tropospheric Ozone Monitoring—Results of an Evaluation Study in Wrocław, Poland

The paper presents the results of a 1.5-year evaluation study of low- and medium-cost ozone sensors. The tests covered electrochemical sensors: SensoriC O3 3E 1 (City Technology) and semiconductor gas sensors: SM50 OZU (Aeroqual), SP3-61-00 (FIS) and MQ131 (Winsen). Three copies of each sensor were...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Marek Badura, Piotr Batog, Anetta Drzeniecka-Osiadacz, Piotr Modzel
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2022-03-01
Series:Atmosphere
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/13/4/542
Description
Summary:The paper presents the results of a 1.5-year evaluation study of low- and medium-cost ozone sensors. The tests covered electrochemical sensors: SensoriC O3 3E 1 (City Technology) and semiconductor gas sensors: SM50 OZU (Aeroqual), SP3-61-00 (FIS) and MQ131 (Winsen). Three copies of each sensor were enclosed in a measurement box and placed near the reference analyser (MLU 400). In the case of SensoriC O3 3E 1 sensors, the R<sup>2</sup> values for the 1-h data were above 0.90 for the first 9 months of deployment, but a performance deterioration was observed in the subsequent months (R<sup>2</sup> ≈ 0.6), due to sensor ageing processes. High linear relationships were observed for the SM50 devices (R<sup>2</sup> > 0.94), but some periodic data offsets were reported, making regular checking and recalibration necessary. Power-law functions were used in the case of SP3-61-00 (R<sup>2</sup> = 0.6–0.7) and MQ131 (R<sup>2</sup> = 0.4–0.7). Improvements in the fittings were observed for models that included temperature and relative humidity data. In the case of SP3-61-00, the R<sup>2</sup> values increased to above 0.82, while for MQ131 they increased to above 0.86. The study also showed that the measurement uncertainty of tested sensors meets the EU Directive 2008/50/EC requirements for indicative measurements and, in some cases, even for fixed measurements.
ISSN:2073-4433