Device Designed at ASU Helps Out in Gulf

TEMPE - The massive oil spill in the Gulf is contaminating the water and possibly the air, for people living or working near it.

So students and scientists from ASU are running tests to find out if the air is safe to breathe. Under sponsorship from the National Institute of Health, ASU's Biodesign Institute is working with the University of New Orleans to develop equipment to test the air quality there.

A team from the Biodesign Institute went to the Gulf to conduct experiments and collect data.

The little black air quality calculator developed at ASU connects wirelessly to a cell phone. Tiny vibrating tuning forks inside the device vibrate at different speeds if the air is bad. The sensors measure hydrocarbons in the air and determine if the air is safe to breathe. It's technology that could save lives.

"It measures the chemical, and sends the chemical level to the cell phone, so you can see it," says scientist Francis Tsow.

"Right now there are people going out in this air," says Katie Driggs Campbell. "If we can give them concentrations they know what is coming. There are a lot of fishermen getting sick potentially because of these chemicals."

Now, scientists have to crunch the recorded data to find out exactly what it means.

Scientists at ASU want to continue developing the device so that it can help determine air quality for use in future disaster response.