Evaluation and calibration of Aeroqual series 500 portable gas sensors for accurate measurement of ambient ozone and nitrogen dioxide

Abstract

Low-power, and relatively low-cost, gas sensors have potential to improve understanding of intra-urban air pollution variation by enabling data capture over wider networks than is possible with ‘traditional’ reference analysers. We evaluated an Aeroqual Ltd. Series 500 semiconducting metal oxide O3 and an electrochemical NO2 sensor against UK national network reference analysers for more than 2 months at an urban background site in central Edinburgh. Hourly-average Aeroqual O3 sensor observations were highly correlated (R2 = 0.91) and of similar magnitude to observations from the UV-absorption reference O3 analyser. The Aeroqual NO2 sensor observations correlated poorly with the reference chemiluminescence NO2 analyser (R2 = 0.02), but the deviations between Aeroqual and reference analyser values ([NO2]Aeroq − [NO2]ref) were highly significantly correlated with concurrent Aeroqual O3 sensor observations [O3]Aeroq. This permitted effective linear calibration of the [NO2]Aeroq data, evaluated using ‘hold out’ subsets of the data (R2 ≥ 0.85). These field observations under temperate environmental conditions suggest that the Aeroqual Series 500 NO2 and O3 monitors have good potential to be useful ambient air monitoring instruments in urban environments provided that the O3 and NO2 gas sensors are calibrated against reference analysers and deployed in parallel.