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Kids Still at Risk: Particulate Matter and Flammable Gas Exposed

CSEF · 2017 Environmental Science First Award

Noah M. Cain · Krystal School of Science, Math & Technology, Hesperia, San Bernardino County

Overview

Objectives/Goals My objective was to determine if there was a positive or negative correlation between relative humidity and particulate matter (PM-10) and flammable/combustible gasses. Methods/Materials I built a sensor to measure PM-10, combustible/flammable gasses, and humidity/temperature and conducted my experiment at my school's parent pick-up lane. I built an Arduino microcontroller-based sensor with a Shinyei PM-10 particle sensor, MQ-2 gas sensor, a DHT11 humidity/temperature sensor, and assembled the components on a breadboard in a repurposed Dell computer power supply with fan. I wrote the code, and modified some of the code from a previous version I built, to control the sensors and monitored the serial output on a laptop computer. I copied the data points (over 2000) into a google sheet for analysis and graphing. Results My results showed that when there is more humidity, there is less PM₁₀ and more combustible gas. When there is less humidity, there is more PM₁₀ and less combustible gas. The average level of PM₁₀ at 52% humidity was 0.792. The average level of PM₁₀ at 33% humidity was 1.076. That is an increase of 136%. The average level of combustible gas at 52% humidity was 247.178. The average level of combustible gas at 33% humidity was 185.852. That is a decrease of 75%. Conclusions/Discussion My hypothesis was partially correct because although PM-10 decreased with higher humidity levels, the amount of flammable gasses increased. When the humidity level decreased, the PM-10 levels increased, while the combustible gas levels decreased. My hypothesis was that both flammable gasses and PM-10 would decrease on a humid day. This suggests that on dry days, children at Krystal School of Science, Math, and Technology are exposed to higher levels of PM-10 than they are on days with higher humidity.

Summary statement

I measured an inverse correlation between PM-10 levels and relative humidity, but combustible/flammable gas levels were not affected by humidity.

Help received

My parents funded the purchase of my materials and drove me to various locations for testing. I selected my project, materials, designed and built my prototype and final sensor, wrote and tested the microcontroller/Arduino code, and conducted the experiment myself.

Awards (1)

Competition history

  • CSEF 2017 Environmental Science · Entry J1205

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