A Low-Cost Air Quality Monitoring IoT System Using Node MCU: A Novel Approach

Air pollution is currently the world’s most dangerous threat to the environment and public health and has a detrimental effect on the ecosystem, climate and human health. Several factors contribute to air pollution, including industrial production of harmful gases, automobile emissions, a rise in the number of hazardous chemicals and particulate matter. Quick decision-making calls for the analysis of information from real-time air quality monitoring are required. This work presents a cost-effective, scalable and flexible Internet of Things (IoT)-based air quality monitoring system developed using a novel approach. The proposed system employs IoT technology to track various vital parameters, such as particulate matter, carbon monoxide, ozone, temperature and humidity, in real-time. Data are sent to the ThingSpeak cloud platform, thereby enabling users to access and analyse the information remotely. The values of particulate matter in the clean surrounding and that in polluted surrounding were two times that of national ambient air quality standards. However, the values of carbon monoxide and ozone were within the permissible limits. The cost effectiveness and user-friendly nature of this system makes it well suited for use in diverse geographic locations, thus enabling prompt decision making in addressing environmental issues.