EL-USB
World Environment Day & Carbon Monoxide Monitoring
Work experience student Grace explains why monitoring Carbon Monoxide is important this World Environment Day...
Today, (Wednesday the fifth of June) is World Environment Day. The theme this year is beating air pollution. Air pollution can travel across continents with weather systems and consequently a staggering 9 out of 10 people breathe air that has an unsafe level of pollution. Air pollution kills 7 million people annually, meaning 1 in 8 deaths are linked to air pollution. In order to counteract these alarming statistics, air quality monitoring is carried out on an international scale.
Carbon Monoxide is one of the gases that warm the earth and pollute the air and too much can have a severe impact on any mammals that breathe in oxygen, especially humans, as it reduces how much oxygen the blood can carry. However, it is colourless and odourless so it can be hard to detect without specialist equipment.
There are a few natural sources of Carbon Monoxide (such as volcanoes and forest fires) and most comes from vehicle emissions and industry, such as making steel. However, Carbon Monoxide is different to most greenhouse gases as it can react with the other greenhouse gases in the air and increase their concentration. A NASA report strongly suggests that carbon monoxide is responsible for a decline in sulphur concentrations which have a cooling effect on the planet. Simply put, carbon monoxide works with other greenhouse gases to warm the world up. And not only that, it is extremely harmful to humans, especially those already affected by an illness.
One way to manage Carbon Monoxide in everyday life is to monitor it. FilesThruTheAir’s Carbon Monoxide Data Logger can help identify areas most at risk of dangerous carbon monoxide levels and most importantly help us see how carbon monoxide levels change through time. The fact is that over a million species are being threatened with extinction due to global warming and one cause of the dramatic temperature change is carbon monoxide. The only way to understand the causes of pollution better is to constantly monitor the environment around us and view how it changes depending on what we do.
The FilesThruTheAir Carbon Monoxide range of USB data loggers are standalone devices that you can simply leave to log in the desired space and collect the data by plugging the device into the USB port of your computer. The standard EL-USB-CO logger and high-accuracy EL-USB-CO300 stores up to 32,510 Carbon Monoxide readings over a 1 to 1000ppm measurement range and -10 to +40°C operating temperature. The user can easily set up logging rate, start time and at what level of Carbon Monoxide they want to be alerted. If the logger records a reading that exceeds the pre-set limit, a bright LED light will flash and a buzzer will sound to give a local warning as well as highlighting this in the data when viewed on the PC.
To find out more about our Carbon Monoxide Data Logging range, click here or to seek advice please call our team on 01425 651111.
By Grace, Year 10 Work Experience
Sources:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48169783
https://mashable.com/2015/05/01/global-warming-species-extinction/?europe=true
https://www.worldenvironmentday.global/get-involved/world-environment-day-mask-challenge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas
https://www.silentshadow.org/carbon-monoxide-in-your-car.html
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/shindell_09/
https://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i26/Sulfate-aerosols-implicated-global-warming.html