Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hey everyone,
I have chosen this project of measuring the pollution levels and finding out methods to decrease them, in my city. I have found out a way for checking the level of pollution at one place. I request any one of you to help me deal with the project's advantages and help for the disadvantages. Once a reply comes, i'll be ready to give in my idea. Thank you.
Hoping for help,
samhitha

Hi Samhitha,

I will be happy to help you with your project. Cleaning up the air in our cities is really important and a worthy goal for young scientists to take on. I see from your title that one of the pollutants you want to study is carbon monoxide. I have a CO detector in my house, but i don't know how sensitive it is and it doesn't tell me the actual concentration of CO.

Is CO the pollutant that you want to focus on? You can check the Scibuddies project guides for instructions on how to set up a testable hypothesis and decide on your variables. You said you would like to find ways to reduce CO pollution. Do you have some ideas how to do this?

Please get back to us with a little more information about what specifically you are interested in studying and how you were planning to do it and I will be able to help you better.

Best wishes,

SciB

Thank you very much for offering help!
I have been searching a lot on Wikipedia and even in science buddies about the common and highest pollutants in the air. I have taken this for my project and i'm not sure about CO detectors. In the search i have done, i have observed that Ozone and CO occupy the first place in pollutants. I'm currently doing a little research on CO and its various compositions. I need some time to find more. I'm interested in studying about atmospheric gas levels and do hope to find a way out of the pollution. Thank you for encouraging

P.S Please suggest a few websites which would help me. Thank you.

Hello again Samhitha,

I did some searching for CO as an air pollutant and found the following sites that I think are reliable and informative:

NASA global map showing CO levels.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Global ... 1=MOP_CO_M

World Health Organization description of CO as a pollutant. This is a good source document but rather technical. http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/p ... noxide.PDF

Indirect greenhouse gases (GHGs). CO is not a GHG itself, but it can affect the concentration of other GHGs such as methane and ozone. http://www.ghgonline.org/otherco.htm

Ancient bacteria can produce and consume CO. This is especially interesting because the bacteria could be a way to reduce atmospheric CO. http://www.astrobio.net/pressrelease/39 ... atmosphere

The last site is especially interesting to me because it talks about a kind of ancient bacteria that is able to both produce and consume CO. If you could engineer the bacteria so they only consumed CO, then theoretically you could use them to eliminate CO from the air. I think that would be a really cool project but I can also see lots of difficulties with it. The amount of CO in the air is pretty low—anywhere from 30-200 parts per billion [ppb], so detecting it accurately is difficult unless you have access to a university graduate chemistry lab. Even then, they would have to have the right type of detector and a way to calibrate it.

I mentioned home CO sensors before and I wondered if they might work. Here’s what I found:

How CO detectors work. http://chemistry.about.com/b/2012/11/06 ... work-2.htm

CO alarm activates at 70 ppm. http://www.kidde.com/Documents/810-1852 ... 050930.pdf

There’s a BIG difference (1000 times!) between 70 ppm and 70 ppb, so you could not use the home detectors to measure CO in the atmosphere. And working with higher levels of CO is dangerous—deadly in fact—so don’t try it. That’s why people install CO detectors in their homes to alert them to the odorless gas that can be produced by malfunctioning heating systems or gas stoves and can kill you if you breathe it for very long.

Ozone is also very toxic in higher concentrations and difficult to detect without special equipment.

Have you gotten any ideas from your reading? I think this is a great project, but it is going to take some thought to make a testable hypothesis. Keep posting to Scibuddies and we will do what we can to help you.

Good luck,

SciB

I have checked through and searched for many websites and pages where I found a lot about CO emissions and its percentage in air etc. I will now check the websites that you have suggested and yes, i have heard about the bacteria you were talking about from one of the university professors. Fortunately, I have access to a university where my father works. I will try and convince. Meanwhile, I have also found that CO detectors serve only about approximately 60%. I will repost ASAP. Thanks!