Design of a Low-Cost Air Quality Monitoring System Using Arduino and ThingSpeak

The impact of daily emissions of gaseous and particulate pollutants of machines and industries on human health and the environment has attracted increasing concerns. This impact has significantly led to a notable increase in mortality in the highly industrialized zones. Therefore, monitoring air quality and creating public awareness are important for a safer future, which led the governments globally to invest multi-billion in policymaking and solution stratification to address the problem. This study aims to design a real-time Internet of Things low-cost air quality monitoring system. The system utilizes air quality and carbon monoxide sensors for monitoring gaseous pollutants. Moreover, the system utilizes an Arduino Nano development board equipped with a WiFi module to effectively send readings to a ThingSpeak online channel platform for instantaneous and real-time display of air quality. The ThingSpeak uses HTTP protocols to send emails in raising awareness of poor air quality. The level of concentration is monitored graphically through channels with the help of ThingSpeak to aid remote communication. A threshold value is set. Thus, when pollutants have become unhealthy and harmful, the system trips off an alarm, and e-mail notifications are sent to the officials. The results have shown that the work was successfully implemented a design of a low-cost air quality monitoring system using Arduino and ThingSpeak, showing that an air quality system can be implemented using a low-cost technology, Arduino and ThingSpeak.