ET helps test the air at a Bristol city centre school

ET’s Sales & Marketing Director, Duncan Mounsor, joined Shadow Environment Minister Barry Gardiner MP and Thangam Debbonaire (Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Bristol West) raising public awareness of air pollution and testing the air quality outside a Bristol city centre school.

Duncan explains “ideally I’d have liked to have used one of ET’s professional “gold-standard” NOx analysers, like the MCERTS approved Teledyne-API T200 instrument but this was not possible due to limited time, the location and not being able to access mains power”.

Duncan continues “Therefore I went with my back-up plan and used a GrayWolf AdvancedSense hand-held computer and TG501 probe to get an indicative snap shot of the air quality, particularly Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2)”.

During the hour or so of testing, real-time NO2 concentrations ranged from between 10 ug/m3 to over 200 ug/m3 highlighting the possibility that over the course of a year, the UK Annual Guideline Value for NO2 of 40 ug/m3 could potentially be breached.

Duncan is quick to point out however “whilst the GrayWolf probe and NO2 sensor used is a very portable and useful screening tool, it is not a standard reference method and more an indicative device and we should bear that in mind when looking at any data. The only way to prove 100% if the NO2 concentrations are breaching the annual guideline value would be to use a professional reference method NOx analyser over at least 12 months in that location and having the data professionally ratified”.

The GrayWolf testing equipment is more commonly used for Indoor Air Quality Monitoring and in the USA, where the product comes from, indoor air quality in city centre schools and learning establishments is often cited as being of primary concern to school teachers and health professionals alike.

Duncan concludes “it is well known that levels of some pollutants can be in fact far higher indoors than they are outdoors so we should not lose sight of this, especially in schools and with conditions such as asthma often reported to be on the rise in children”.