Ozone Monitoring

Detect and quantify ozone levels to assure air quality and safety.

Ozone readily absorbs UVC light energy. Monitoring the rate of this absorption can be used to quantify the amount of ozone in the air.

The Importance of Ozone Monitoring

Even low-level exposure to ozone can result in reduced lung function, aggravation of pre-existing respiratory conditions, and other adverse health effects.

Ozone is a key ingredient in many industrial applications such as microprocessor production, disinfection and deodorizing, and chemical synthesis. Accurate monitoring and reporting of ozone levels are crucial measures to ensure worker safety in industrial settings.

Ground-level ozone is one of the most common air pollutants. While ozone itself is not present in exhaust emissions, it is the product of reactions between these hydrocarbon emissions and sunlight. Therefore, high ozone levels can occur both at the source of emissions and can also be spread widely across metropolitan areas.

Considering the extensive range of health hazards ozone poses, the EPA has set the ozone standard at 75 parts-per-billion (ppb). Thus, there is a pressing need to monitor ground-level ozone at the parts-per-billion level over a wide geographic area to ensure compliance with these EPA levels.

The advantages of UVC LEDs versus other ozone-sensing technologies:

Traditional UV lamp systems have several limitations when compared to UVC LEDs: They are physically larger than LEDs, so devices housing UV lamps must be made substantially bigger than devices containing LEDs. UV lamps also need relatively high voltage to perform accurate measurements, which makes them less efficient than LEDs. These factors preclude the use of UV lamps in mobile and handheld devices, or in systems where overall energy use is a concern.

The same drawbacks exhibited by UV lamps are true for metal-oxide thin film ozone sensors, which only work at high operating temperatures and consume a comparatively large amount of energy.

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