Low-Cost Sensor Applications for Environmental Research: Potentialities and Limitations in Indoor and Outdoor Air Pollution Monitoring

Dear Colleagues,

The last decade has witnessed a progressive evolution of methodological approaches and strategies for air pollution monitoring and control through the exploitation of low-cost sensors, used exclusively or simultaneously with high-grade scientific instruments. Based on the recent remarkable strides made in the sensor technology field, a wide selection of low-cost sensors have become available on the market, stimulating the scientific community to apply them as strategic tools for the high temporal and spatial resolution monitoring of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and particulate matter (PM). As a result of their user-friendly interfaces and low maintenance requirements, combined with the availability of high temporal and spatial resolution data, low-cost sensors have contributed to the development of citizen science projects based on sensor networks for atmospheric pollution monitoring enabling specific scientific questions to be addressed, e.g., the detection of short-term events, identification of emissive sources, and spatial distribution of pollutants. Additional evidence on the potentialities of low-cost sensors to serve as a versatile and strategic methodological approach in order to assess the impact of emission sources has also been provided by indoor air quality studies. Nevertheless, low-cost sensor technology may potentially be affected by weak reproducibility and inter-sensor variability, as well as susceptibility to environmental parameters, e.g., humidity, which may lead to uncertainty about the reliability and meaningfulness of the data. Therefore, a rigorous scientific evaluation of low-cost sensor performances through direct field comparisons with scientific-grade instruments is essential in order to extend their effectiveness. This Special Issue tries to solve the very debated issue on the potentialities and limitations of low-cost sensor applications, both indoors and outdoors, inviting scientists and experts in the fields of chemistry and engineering to contribute.

Dr. Jolanda Palmisani
Prof. Dr. Gianluigi de Gennaro
Dr. Alessia Di Gilio
Guest Editors

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