Air pollution is recognised by the World Health Organization as the single largest environmental health risk, causing an estimated 7 million premature deaths globally every year.
Many of these air pollutants are regulated by reactions with short-lived atmospheric radicals, but currently these reactions can only be measured with expensive equipment in just a handful of labs around the world.
RADICAL will change that. We are building an electronic nose to detect atmospheric radicals. This has never been done before, but if it works, our new RADICAL sensors will be low-cost, small and mobile, to help us better monitor the role of radicals in air quality.
Here’s how we’re building the RADICAL sensor, as told by each of our partners across Europe:
Detecting radicals in real-time can help us better understand the short-lived reactions that lead to poor air quality indoors and out.
RADICAL is an international research collaboration across Germany, Bulgaria, Greece, the UK and Ireland, all funded by the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement number 899282.
To follow our progress and get in touch, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn, or send us an email: info@radical-air.eu.
Thank you to our communications partner, UCC Academy, for creating this video.
About the author: Dr Tamela Maciel (UCC Academy) is the project manager and communications manager for RADICAL.
