Exploring the Indoor Air Quality in the Context of Changing Climate in Residential Buildings—Part A: Developed Measurement Devices of Low-Cost Sensors

Indoor air quality (IAQ) is influenced by several parameters and the sources of indoor air pollutants are numerous (building materials, occupant behavior, HVAC systems, Outdoor air, etc.). Utilization of low-cost sensor devices for screening the indoor air pollution has notably drawn interest over the recent years. These systems are easy to access, portable, need low maintenance, and can provide real-time and continuous screening of target contaminants. The implementation of these systems to monitor the IAQ in real-time and for a long period of time, can support the study of indoor air pollutants trends and variations. In this paper, we present sensors performance needed for an indoor air use. For this reason, four multi-sensor devices are fabricated and developed to measure O3, CO, NO, NO2, PM2.5, PM10, as well as the temperature and humidity, in an experimental side by side performance evaluation by comparison with reference analyzers. The results showed a sufficient correlation of the measuring devices and the reference data considering the temperature and relative humidity. By the mean of Orthogonal regression method, the calibration equations were acquired for measuring parameters to enhance the IAQ monitoring devices performances. The results were examined on the basis of threshold limit value concentrations defined by European Commission indoor exposure limit values.