Towards the World's Smallest Gravimetric Particulate Matter Sensor: A Miniaturized Virtual Impactor with a Folded...

The increasing air pollution across the globe has given rise to a global health crisis that is increasing at an alarming rate. Every year, millions of people lose their lives due to health risks caused by air pollutants. Hence, there is a pressing need for better solutions to accurately measure the amount of air pollution. This work is aimed at designing a highly compact, accurate, low-cost, self-resettable, and easy-to-use gravimetric-based particulate matter sensor solution for portable applications. Previous attempts have failed to realize true miniaturization, due to the size constraints of the virtual impactor needed-a mechanism that segregates the particulate matters based on their sizes. Our complete particulate matter sensor solution consists of three components (i) a piezoelectric resonating membrane, (ii) a virtual impactor, and (iii) a thermophoretic mechanism to reset the sensor. This paper presents a novel design of the virtual impactor, based on a folded configuration. This helps realize the entire system in a volume of 20 mm × 20 mm × 10 mm. We report here the design, working principles, fabrication, and experimental results of the virtual impactor.