A first-of-its-kind in Canada air sampling machine has been built by an Environmental Engineering Student at UNBC.
Madeline Clarke built the rotating indoor Workplace Atmosphere Sampler (WAM) as a project over the Summer, and it’s one of only a handful in the world.
The machine works by using 12 individual air pumps, that go through a filter, and catch what they are looking for in the air.
“The pumps are meant to be personal pumps, they’re meant to just be attached to someone’s body, and then it samples what the other person is breathing,” Clarke explained.
“But if you want to take more than one sample you can’t attach five samplers to a person, that would just be annoying. If you want to sit them on something, because of the way the air flows in the room, you might get one sampler that’s just reading nothing and one sampler that’s reading a bunch.”
Clarke’s design spins very slowly, allowing each pump to get an even amount of air flow through it.
The WAM will be used for a welding project with WorkSafeBC, but Clarke says it can be used for other things such as chemical fumes, dust, or heavy metal particles.
“We have to create solutions, and that’s what we’re doing right now at UNBC,” said Northern Analytics Laboratory Quality Assurance Officer Ann Duong.
“It’s really incredible that we have undergraduates who are entering their second year, such as Madeline, creating these solutions for the community, for Canada, for the World.”
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