South Coast Science is a Brighton, UK based manufacturer of air quality instruments. Established in 2016, the Praxis/Urban product was developed in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and is now used across all seven continents. It can measure up to 9 different environmental parameters simultaneously and data is stored onboard the device as well as automatically uploaded to the South Coast Science cloud, where it can be downloaded into customer’s infrastructure. An open-source data platform is used so that users can, if required, compare raw with corrected data once it has been through the company’s bespoke correction algorithm.
The success of the Praxis/Urban led to the development of more products, the first of which launched early in 2021. The Praxis/OPCube is a small robust device for the environmental health/smart city sector offering gas plus particulate monitoring. Others in development include the Praxis/GasCube, a battery/solar powered device for odour monitoring in the wastewater treatment sector and the Praxis/IAQ for indoor air quality within schools, serviced offices and public buildings.
Confidence in the hardware is only one half of the equation however, having confidence in the data supplied is the other half. We are currently nearing the end of a data correction project and have spent three years collocating our instruments with government reference sites around the UK. PM and NO2 correction has now been finalised and we expect that this process will be completed for the remainder of the gases by the end of the year. Results are impressive with indicative values achieved for both species.