Testing for air pollution?

[Genecks]

Let's say I want to test the levels of pollution inside of a room versus the air from outside in a particular spot (perhaps the area around beyond the room's window). I suspect I would have to take multiple measurements, but I'm thinking it could be done.

 

Does anyone know how I could go about doing this?

 

What I mainly want to do is test and examine the levels of air pollution.

At the moment, I'm under the belief that the air outside of my window is more polluted than the air inside the room.

Yes, unusual, I know. But I want to see if I'm right about this, as I seem to smell more smog and filth outside rather than inside the room.

[John Cuthber]

Measuring air pollution is a horribly complicated subject.

However there's a fairly simple method that might do the job.

Get a couple of pumps and use them to pull air at the same rate through a couple of pieces of filter paper.

If one piece of paper ends up much darker than the other then it suggests it was in a more contaminated environment.

[Genecks]

What kind of pumps and filter paper do you suggest? Any ideas for something small scale?

[John Cuthber]

You could probably get by with a couple of identical aquarium pumps and any white filter paper. One would do but you would need some way of making sure that the flow rate through the two filters was identical or you could run the samples at different times but then the weather and such might influence the results. ( of course, you need to find pumps that suck.)

For air sampling typical flow rates are from about 0.1 to 10 litres per minute (higher and lower rates are sometimes used).

Filters from 10 to 50 mm in diameter are typical.

It is common practice to put samplers (pumps and filters) like these on people as they work to measure exposure to chemicals and dust that they are working with. How small a scale do you need?

These people are probably the biggest suppliers in the world.

http://www.skcinc.com/pumps.asp