According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, indoor air can be two to one hundred times more polluted than outdoor air (EPA, 2024). With the average person spending 90% of their time indoors (EPA, 2024), the health risks associated with these pollutants remain an ever-present concern, highlighting the urgent need for effective solutions to improve indoor air quality and healthy building monitoring.

A significant barrier to addressing indoor air pollution has been the difficulty in accurately and affordably detecting harmful pollutants. Notably, current sensors provide an aggregate value known as total volatile organic compounds or TVOCs, meaning they cannot distinguish toxic cancer-causing compounds like benzene from benign ones like those from your perfume or drink.

To address this challenge, a team of researchers from the Wyss Institute, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard Graduate School of Design, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, led by Haritosh Patel, a graduate student at the Aizenberg Lab at Harvard, have developed a groundbreaking sensor that offers reliable, real-time insights into indoor air quality. The sensor named the Sensory Nature-Inspired Fact Finder of Indoor Air, or SNIFFIA, is inspired by nature’s process of biological olfaction. This innovative technology leverages artificial noses, equipping them with key capabilities to detect and identify specific volatile compounds in the air.

In a July 2024 study conducted at HouseZero®, the team tested the performance of the new bioinspired sensors alongside traditional sensors in a realistic setting for indoor air quality monitoring. This data, collected at HouseZero®, was then used to train machine learning models to accurately identify specific gases in the air, marking a significant step forward in advancing indoor air quality monitoring.

 

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