The EcoCity development team, with the support of the Clean Air for Ukraine project together with the Czech NGO Arnika, is presenting a unique mobile air monitoring station Sapphire-32. The station does not require stationary fixation, it allows continuous independent evaluation of air quality at any location and measures more than 15 parameters. Sapphire-32 from EcoCity is an innovative development of Ukrainian technical experts and inventors that will help promote a new level of citizens’ rights to clean and safe air in Ukraine.
According to Maksym Soroka, scientific and technical advisor to the Clean Air for Ukraine project, the mobility and independence of Sapphire-32 station provides special opportunity to assess air quality and safety in the event of emergencies, fires, adverse weather conditions and severe air quality deterioration.
A key developer of special software for the stations, fifteen-year-old Dmytro Obukhov, noted that the Sapphire-32 mobile station is a unique Ukrainian invention that has no analogues in Ukraine. This experience can be extended to public air monitoring projects around the world.
Air quality can now be measured by more than 15 parameters, namely: fine dust particles PM10, PM2,5, carbon monoxide CO and carbon dioxide CO2, nitrogen dioxide NO2, sulfur dioxide SO2, formaldehyde H2CO, ammonia NH3, ground-level ozone O3 and total volatile organic compounds TVOC. It is possible to expand the list of specific toxic substances and additives with: aromatic hydrocarbons, hydrogen sulfide H2S and hydrogen chloride HCl. These toxic substances are included in the priority list of air quality assessment in accordance with the procedures of the European Union and the new procedure for state monitoring in the field of air protection (Ukrainian law from August 14th 2019, № 827). Moreover, the mobile station allows to assess the level of physical (parametric) pollution using the indicators of the radioactive radiation, noise and the intensity of UV radiation.
Oleksiy Trelevsky, the curator of the EcoCity public air quality monitoring project, notes that the mobile design allows the air quality to be assessed even indoors: “This station is equipped with an electronic dialog board, which allows you to check the level of air pollution here and now – even without Internet connection. All values from the sensors are displayed in real time, averaged every 20 minutes, sent to a server and stored in memory of the device, where they can be downloaded as a CVS file for further expert analysis by the environmental activists. This provides multi-level data protection, and the GPS module allows you to accurately determine the time and place of monitoring.”
Built-in high-capacity batteries allow monitoring of atmospheric air outdoors for 48 hours, so you can immediately assess air quality and explore maximum individual and average daily concentrations.
From July to August, the first 5 prototypes of EcoCity’s Sapphire-32 mobile air monitoring stations will be handed over for testing and operation to environmental activists and partners of the Clean Air for Ukraine project in Zaporizhia, Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro, Kharkiv and Kramatorsk.
The presentation of Sapphire-32 stations will be held online on July 31 (Friday) with live broadcasting on ZOOM and Facebook. Representatives of the media, the public, local governments, the scientific and expert community are invited to participate. Media and guest registration at: https://www.facebook.com/events/2735434270108642/
For reference:
Clean Air for Ukraine (https://cleanair.org.ua/) is an international project that has been implemented since 2018 by the joint efforts of the Czech non-governmental organization Arnika (https://english.arnika.org/) and public environmental organizations of the coalition “Campaign for clean air in the cities of Eastern Ukraine”. Financial support for the project was provided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic within the TRANSITION Promotion Program and the National Endowment for Democracy fund.
EcoCity (https://eco-city.org.ua) is a socio-ecological project and the largest network of public air quality monitoring in Ukraine. This project has been implemented since 2018 by the team of the non-profit NGO “Free Arduino” with the resource and financial support of citizens, non-profit NGOs, independent partners and consultants.
Project experts:
Maxim Soroka, scientific and technical expert of the Clean Air for Ukraine project, +38 096 669 48 77
Oleksiy Trelevsky, curator of public air quality monitoring EcoCity, +38 099 087 03 01
