Air Monitoring for Public Safety

Most people are aware about pollution in the external environment, and have started using ozone-friendly, recycled products. However, the indoor air quality is most often ignored as it appears to be healthy and free of pollution. In reality, it contains many pollutants that are harmful and can shorten your life. There are many micro-organisms, and background gases in the atmosphere that reduce the quality of the environment. The air you breathe should be of good quality to avoid the risk of heart disease, lung cancer and asthma attacks.

The chemical process of atmospheric reactions of gases such as sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide emitted from burning wood at home in residential fireplaces , wood stoves or burning fossil fuels in factories, power plants, steel mills, smelters, diesel- and gasoline-powered motor vehicles like cars, buses and trucks, produce particle pollution. These are harmful for health and can interfere with the proper functioning and growth of lungs.

Particle pollution, also known as particulate matter, is a mixture of microscopic solids and liquid droplets, including acids (such as nitrates and sulphates), organic chemicals, metals, soil or dust particles, and allergens. These particles occur year-round and are so minute that they can be only seen with an electron microscope.

You might be breathing particle pollution without knowing it, the larger particles may be coughed or sneezed out of your body whereas the smaller particles get trapped in the lungs, and can easily pass through the lungs into the blood stream. Sulphur dioxide pollution is more harmful when the concentration of particle pollution is high and can lead to medical emergency in asthmatic patients.

In the UK, Defra is the government department responsible for making policy and legislation, for the natural environment, biodiversity, plants and animals, environmental protection and pollution control. Directive 96/62/EC sets the standard for monitoring and reporting ambient air quality in the UK.

There are over 1500 air monitoring networks across the UK operating on behalf of the Defra and the Devolved Administrations. These are organised into automatic and non-automatic networks that use a particular method for gathering information. The automatic networks produce hourly pollutant concentrations, with data being collected from individual sites by modem.

The non-automatic networks measure less frequently either, daily, weekly, or monthly. Samples are collected physically by diffusion tube or filter, and are subjected to chemical analysis, to calculate the final pollutant concentrations. Green Air Monitoring Ltd, listed on SearchMe4, UK’s leading online business directory, provides factual information about the air quality of your workplace environment.

Lighter than air technology was very popular at the beginning of the twentieth century, but the Hindenburg disaster in 1937 caused people to lose interest in this type of aircraft.

Since then there has been new research and development for both civilian and military applications. Innovations in materials and other technology has caused a renewed interest in lighter than air devices.

Lighter Than Air Aircraft

All lighter than air vehicles use a lifting gas to provide their lift. The most common types of lifting gas used (since hydrogen was banned after 1937) are helium and hot air. Blimps use helium and large balloons use hot air. One thousand cubic feet of hot air has a lifting capacity of approximately twenty pounds. One thousand cubic feet of helium will lift approximately three times that of hot air or sixty pounds. Hydrogen has a lifting capacity that is approximately ten percent higher than helium.

Common Applications

Blimps and balloons are usually what come to mind when someone mentions lighter than air aircraft. These are unique and large enough to draw attention. They have applications in aerial photography, aerial advertising, surveillance and sports events. Radio controlled

blimps make a very cost effective platform for flying billboards. The retention of seeing an ad on the side of a blimp is much greater than the television, radio and static written ads that we are exposed to all of the time. The radio-controlled blimp is ideal for video photographic needs. They can fly much lower than a fixed wing aircraft and are less expensive to operate than a helicopter.

Near Space Applications

Near space is defined roughly as that region above controlled air space (approximately twelve miles high) to about sixty miles high (lower limit of space.) This region offers advantages for both civilian communications and military applications over the present satellite system in use today.

One advantage would be cost savings. Putting satellites into orbit is very expensive. Another is safety. Think how crippling it would be if one or more of our satellites stopped functioning. It would be much faster to get a vehicle into near space than getting one or more twenty thousand plus mile into space.

Our communications needs for both voice and data are increasing at an exponential rate. Future wars are going to be fought and won by technology. Data to satellites travels at the speed of light, but there is a delay to travel twenty thousand miles up and twenty thousand miles back vs. traveling sixty miles up and sixty back. This delay could be important if you are trying to lock on to a missile pointed in your direction.

There is an increasing need to develop lighter than air platforms that can be parked in this near space region. Tests have shown that line of site communications can be increased from ten miles to over four hundred miles by utilizing near space platforms. This offers a tremendous advantage for both civilian and military communications. Having several of these platforms will provide the ability to cover thousands of square miles areas.

Several companies and universities are doing research on near space vehicles. If you do a search on the web using a poplar search engine you will find over two million entries.

Conclusion

Lighter than air technology has many advantages, however, there are engineering obstacles that have to be solved before it is used in large quantities. The volume required to lift a payload that is practical will limit some applications. There will always be a need for satellites, but lighter than air vehicles will provide increased capabilities for future needs.