Ricerc@Sapienza

Lastly improvement in buildings insulation united with molds and yeasts proliferation, and with the wide adoption of air conditioning had reduced air change rate inside buildings creating air stagnation and reducing breathable oxygen, leading to an air-quality impoverishment due to the presence of pollutants and toxic gases inside the rooms. In addition, molds and yeasts proliferation increases CO2 concentrations reducing breathable oxygen with several consequences on the health. The pollution issue is present also in the outside environment where the concentration of NOx to SO2 and micro particulate matter can exceed the limits. Basing on the WHO air quality guidelines, the concentration of several outdoor and indoor pollutants should be controlled. Prosecuting the activities started during the bilateral project "PRACTICE" (Planning Renewal Ageing Cities Towards Innovative Cellular Environments) and "SoURCE" (Sustainable Urban Cells), where was developed an age-friendly integrated air quality sensor called HOPES (Home Embedded Pollution System, elected as "project of the day" by Sapienza) a new prototype of wearable gas sensor called MEPS (Mobile Embedded Pollution System) is presented, a smaller version of HOPES. The system is a wearable thought to analyze the personal breathed pollutants. The system proposes an innovative approach, focused on people more than on the external environment; before protecting the environment, it is important to protect people from environmental pollution. MEPS project will help in monitoring real time pollutants in air helping people to reduce their exposure to hazardous gases and collecting position data helpful to the authority for managing purposes, green district and emergencies identification. It can be considered a mitigation measures that will help to keep breathed pollutants concentration averagely under the recommended values.