Innovations in Air Quality Monitoring: Sensors, IoT and Future Research

Recently, Air Quality Monitoring (AQM) has gained significant R&D attention from academia and industries, leading to advanced sensor-enabled IoT solutions. Literature highlights the use of nanomaterials in sensor design, emphasising miniaturisation, enhanced calibration, and low voltage, room-temperature operation. Significant efforts are aimed at improving sensitivity, selectivity, and stability, while addressing challenges like high power consumption and drift. The integration of sensors with IoT technology is driving the development of accurate, scalable, and real-time AQM systems. This paper provides technical insights into recent AQM advancements, focusing on air pollutants, sensor technologies, IoT frameworks, performance evaluation, and future research directions. It presents a detailed analysis of air quality composition and potential air pollutants. Relevant sensors are examined in terms of design, materials and methodologies for pollutant monitoring. A critical review of IoT frameworks for AQM is conducted, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. As a technical contribution, an experimental performance evaluation of three commercially available AQM systems in the UK is discussed, with a comparative and critical analysis of the results. Lastly, future research directions are also explored with a focus on AQM sensor design and IoT framework development.