Performance assessment of TVOC sensors used in consumer-grade air quality monitors

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dc.contributor.advisorNagy, Gyorgy Zoltan
dc.contributor.committeeMemberKinney, Kerry
dc.creatorBastami, Sepehr
dc.date.accessioned2022-11-02T00:08:59Z
dc.date.available2022-11-02T00:08:59Z
dc.date.created2021-08
dc.date.issued2021-09-27
dc.date.submittedAugust 2021
dc.date.updated2022-11-02T00:09:01Z
dc.description.abstractIndoor Air Quality (IAQ) has a direct impact on overall occupant health, especially respiratory and neural health. To ensure adequate indoor air quality, we must monitor the air by regularly sampling for pollutants of concern. One important category of air pollutants is VOCs: Volatile Organic Compounds. Some VOCs may be toxic at low concentrations while others require prolonged exposure at high concentrations to become a concern. Traditionally, measuring VOCs accurately has been prohibitively expensive and/or complicated. Recently, consumer-grade air quality monitors have been advertised as affordable counter parts to the expensive and complicated research-grade monitors and sensors. We studied the performance of a unique category of Total Volatile Organic Compounds sensor called a CMOS sensor. We assessed the performance of two brands of TVOC sensors used in three consumer-grade air quality monitors. We conducted a total of 5 experiments, 3 in a real home environment and 2 in a laboratory setting using a state-of-the-art air quality sampling device called the Vocus PTR-Tof. The consumer grade devices tend to exhibit some degree of uniformity in their patterns in response to pollution events, however, they can often deviate from one another in measuring actual concentration levels. The CMOS sensors studied suffer from a range of persistent challenges inherent to the CMOS technology, such as sensitivity and selectivity limitations. While improvements continue, more research is required to determine the extent to which these sensors may be useful and whether they can reliably and reasonably be used to assess indoor air quality
dc.description.departmentCivil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/2152/116444
dc.identifier.urihttp://dx.doi.org/10.26153/tsw/43339
dc.language.isoen
dc.subjectIndoor air quality
dc.subjectIAQ
dc.subjectVolatile organic compounds
dc.subjectVOCs
dc.subjectCMOS gas sensors
dc.titlePerformance assessment of TVOC sensors used in consumer-grade air quality monitors
dc.typeThesis
dc.type.materialtext
local.embargo.lift2023-08-01
local.embargo.terms2023-08-01
thesis.degree.departmentCivil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering
thesis.degree.disciplineCivil Engineering
thesis.degree.grantorThe University of Texas at Austin
thesis.degree.levelMasters
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Science in Engineering

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