CO2 Tech Guru Guido Burger from Germany joins Dale Dougherty to explain his research into monitoring CO2 and show how to build his CO2 traffic light, which can warn if the level of CO2 is rising. We look at how CO2 sensors work as we go through the hardware and software that make up a CO2 device and graph the data it produces. These are devices that students can learn to build and create a full-featured Internet of Things application.

The CDC recently updated its understanding of the transmission of COVID-19 to focus on spread through aerosols, which are exhaled by people and can be circulated in the air. Larger droplets will fall to the ground, which is why the CDC guidelines emphasized social distancing and masks and avoiding contact. However, these aerosols are much smaller and are airborne much longer. When people gather indoors, proper ventilation is needed to move fresh air into the room and disperse the aerosols.

Monitoring CO2 indoors can be used as an indicator or marker for proper air ventilation. CO2 devices provide information that allows you to take actions to be safe and reduce your risk of exposure to COVID-19. While you can buy commercial CO2 devices, you can build them and deploy them to measure the accumulation of CO2 in a confined space.

A YouTube video of this conversation is available at: https://youtu.be/SZoBHfus1Y8.
You can also find a companion article on the Make: website: https://makezine.com/2021/05/17/the-what-how-and-why-of-co-monitoring/