Accra, April 22, GNA – The fifth edition of the AIRLAB Microsensors Challenge has opened for sensor manufacturers to register and participate.
For the 2025 edition, the AIRLAB microsensors challenge offers a more advanced evaluation by incorporating two new outdoor testing sites, Accra (Ghana) and Bangalore (India), along with a new underground railway environment in Paris, France.
This expansion will enable a more comprehensive study of the impact of varied climatic conditions, emission sources and confined space on microsensor performance.
This is done through a partnership between Airparif, Afri-SET and Indi-SET (CSTEP). The inclusion of the new locations, Accra (Ghana) and Bangalore (India) is due to their distinct environmental characteristics and strong local capabilities in air quality monitoring and microsensor research.
Dr Allison Felix Hughes, Afri-SET’s Facility Manager and Ag. Head, Department of Physics, University of Ghana, speaking to the Ghana News Agency, said, “The evaluation period will be between September 2025 to mid-January 2026, and we will be assessing sensors from manufacturers globally.”
The Challenge, he indicated, would have an international expert jury that would compare and rank the air quality sensors, and manufacturers with the best sensors would be awarded. He added that the 2025 edition will focus on pollutants including particulate matter, nitrogen oxides (NOx), ozone (O₃), and sulphur dioxide (SO₂).
Air pollution is a critical health, economic, and societal issue. According to the latest Health Effects Institute Global Health Report 2024, both outdoor and indoor air pollution accounted for about 8.1 million deaths worldwide in 2021. Governments, private companies, and citizens increasingly demand reliable air quality data to support informed policy-making and implement effective solutions for improving air quality.
The 2025 AIRLAB Microsensors Challenge is supported by the Clean Air Fund, Open Philanthropy, the French Development Agency (AFD), Île-de-France Mobilités, and the French Agency for Ecological Transition. Other sponsors include the Asian Institute of Technology, Atmo France (Federation of accredited Air Quality Monitoring Associations), the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, the Imperial College London, the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU), the Indoor Environment Quality Observatory, and the World Meteorological Organization.
Sensor manufacturers who wish to participate in the challenge can visit:https://airlab.solutions/actualites/challenge-microcapteurs-edition-2025-225.
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