Real-Time Optical Ozone Sensor for Occupational Exposure Assessment

New personal exposure monitor is needed to assess Ozone (O₃) concentration in workplaces for understanding health risks. In this paper, an accumulative, simple and inexpensive sensor was developed using visible spectroscopy for the real-time monitoring of O₃. The fabricated sensor consists of mesoporous silica thin film impregnated with methylene blue. The sensor exhibits high sensitivity in the range of 10-200 ppbv (part per billion by volume) of O₃, with a reproducible response and high stability under air. A proposed model was used to fit the experimental data and predict in real-time the detected ozone concentration by the developed sensor.