Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers. As the natural uranium in the ground decays, radon is produced and released into the atmosphere. Radon hotspots are therefore associated with geographical factors such as soil porosity and moisture and are therefore independent of urban emissions.
Modern rural homes are generally well insulated but poorly ventilated, creating conditions for dangerously high radon concentrations. Cellars and basements with large ground contact surfaces are particularly high-risk locations for radon exposure.
Existing methods for checking radon levels require keeping a piece of radiosensitive plastic in the house for three months, before sending it to a lab for analysis and waiting a few more weeks for the results. This aims to obtain a representative average level – which is not reliable if the occupancy of the house changes, if construction works take place or if the detectors are not placed correctly. Overall, the existing technology for measuring radon in homes is slow, inaccurate and expensive.
Continuous measurement solves these problems, making it possible to quantify changes in radon levels due to construction work, weather conditions, season, room occupancy, etc. This both improves baseline accuracy and highlights concentration peaks to enable targeted mitigation actions.
Determining malodor levels resulting from agricultural or industrial activity has always been the responsibility of human panels who rarely visit sites and record their opinions. In addition to being ineffective, the results are largely subjective. This creates a substantial opportunity for ongoing quantitative monitoring that can ensure regulatory compliance and can be numerically linked to odor reduction methods.
Electronic noses for the smart home and food and beverage market, capable of identifying the fingerprint of odors once trained, have recently come to market. Bosch’s electronic nose sensors are marketed by several device manufacturers, especially for quantifying the smell of a specific coffee/wine or for detecting spoiled food in the refrigerator. Their low-cost metal oxide sensors as well as higher-value AI software packages are now widely available, with even smaller and more sensitive printed nanomaterials from several competitors also showing great promise.
Small, low-powered sensors can be mounted on drones, agricultural vehicles, or distributed around farms/factories to obtain granular, continuous odor information. Reliance on software will likely lead to new business models adopting “odor management” as a service to comply with government regulations.
Improving air quality in rural areas requires a clear picture of problems, such as radon and bad smells, and therefore access to lots of real-time data. Networks of gas sensors in cities are growing, providing more information about the interaction between urban emissions and pollution in real time. They show their value in information and policy regulation, while enabling closed-loop systems for “smart cities” such as speed limit management. However, localized and granular campaign data poses a new challenge and market opportunity. This could incorporate both fixed and portable solutions, public transport integration and even wearable devices.
Main image source: IDTechEx
