CO2 GAS SENSOR AND AN AUTOMATICALLY AIR CONDITIONER SWITCH IN THE

PRESENCE OF THE GAS IN AIR AT A CERTAIN MASS.

Megi Marku

Mehmet Akif-Girls College

Tirane 2017
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Table of Contents
Abstract ............................................................................................................................... 4

Materials ............................................................................................................................. 7

Arduino Uno ................................................................................................................... 7

Power (USB / Barrel Jack) .......................................................................................... 8

Pins (5V, 3.3V, GND, Analog, Digital, PWM, AREF) .............................................. 9

GND (3) .............................................................................................................. 9

5V (4) & 3.3V (5) ............................................................................................... 9

Analog (6) ........................................................................................................... 9

Digital (7) ............................................................................................................ 9

PWM (8) ............................................................................................................. 9

AREF (9) ............................................................................................................. 9

Reset Button .............................................................................................................. 10

Power LED Indicator ................................................................................................ 10

TX RX LEDs ............................................................................................................ 10

Main IC ..................................................................................................................... 10

Voltage Regulator ..................................................................................................... 11

Breadboard .................................................................................................................... 11

Solid Core Jumper Wires .............................................................................................. 12

LED ............................................................................................................................... 13
Gas Sensor And Air Conditioner Switch 3

Resistor ......................................................................................................................... 14

MG-811 CO2 Sensor Module ....................................................................................... 16

Relay ............................................................................................................................. 16

Methods............................................................................................................................. 18

Results ............................................................................................................................... 33

Disscusion ......................................................................................................................... 35

Acknowledgement ............................................................................................................ 36

References ......................................................................................................................... 37

Footnotes ............................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.

Tables .................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.

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Abstract

Air Conditioner(A.C.) is an important device used widely in world for controlling air

humidity and temperature. A.C. possesses it's side effects also; one of them is the build-up of

harmful things which is able for giving further issues related with the human organism. The

scope of my work is using a mechanism to measure the air quality in home, offices, or

overpopulated ambients by avoiding the CO2 growth, which will lead at minimizing it ,also

noting that this is a good energy saving idea, by decreasing the percentage of the exorbitant

amount of energy used. I'm sure it is going to be a successful and beneficial machine for

electronics nowadays and onwards.

My investigation was occurred on the internet surfing in many websites which were the

initiative and creator of my idea. I used analysis of field data. The main tool used for controlling

all this system was chosen to be Arduino, which is a computer hardware and software company,

project, that designs and manufactures microcontroller kits for building digital devices and

interactive objects that can sense and control objects in the physical world or simply it is an

open-source electronics platform based on easily usage of hardware and software. It's designed

for anyone making interactive projects.

My creation is going to be a MG-811 sensor which has to detect the excess amount of

CO2 created from the air conditioner and giving it the signal to switch it off when the sensor will

detect the CO2 mass which is going to be set by me as a threshold. After the air quality is

adjusted (reaching the minimum mass) the mechanism will give back the digital signal to switch

the air conditioner on again.

A normal A.C. emissions 500-3200 gr CO2 per hour the second biggest CO2 emitter after

the Small Electric Hot Water Heater which it emits 1000-3900 gr CO2 per hour. Small A.C. like
Gas Sensor And Air Conditioner Switch 5

window units can use 700 to 1500 watts and central units can use 2400-9600 watts depending on

size and efficiency. My goal is to control and make the device efficient by monitoring the levels

of harmful things and being able to reduce it at least in 50% per hour, and saving the energy

around 10% or 15%.

This small mechanism will be an opportunity for automation of conditioner on the

market, likewise a deterrent to health risks in human organism, and also an essential help for

environment and a great energy saving tip. My results are specific only to the gas sensor

mechanism which in this case it is one of the major key in this project, as well Arduino. By being

known with this new world I decided that I will be experimenting it further.
Gas Sensor And Air Conditioner Switch 6

CO2 GAS SENSOR AND AN AUTOMATICALLY AIR CONDITIONER SWITCHER IN

THE PRESENCE OF THE GAS IN AIR AT A CERTAIN MASS.

"Environmental pollution is an incurable disease. It can only be prevented.''

Barry Commoner.

It has been quite a long time that people are aware of this major global problem. Our job

is to not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emission standards from human made

sources. So what is the one best thing everyone could do to reduce the carbon dioxide emission

in our day to day activities ? This experiment will be an important and beneficial machine. Using

this experiment to maintain the unwholesome air that is created from the air conditioner , by

switching it on or off in certain measures to stop the excess growth of co2 is going to be a

valuable project.
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Materials

The materials that are needed are listed in this section, with a little explanation of how

they work and how they can be used.

Arduino Uno

Arduino is an open-source platform used for building electronics projects. Arduino

consists of both a physical programmable circuit board (often referred to as a microcontroller)

and a piece of software, or IDE (Integrated Development Environment) that runs on your

computer, used to write and upload computer code to the physical board.

The Arduino platform has become quite popular with people just starting out with

electronics, and for good reason. Unlike most previous programmable circuit boards, the

Arduino does not need a separate piece of hardware (called a programmer) in order to load new

code onto the board you can simply use a USB cable. Additionally, the Arduino IDE uses a

simplified version of C++, making it easier to learn to program. Finally, Arduino provides a

standard form factor that breaks out the functions of the micro-controller into a more accessible

package.

What's on the board? There are many varieties of Arduino boards that can be used for

different purposes
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Power (USB / Barrel Jack)

Every Arduino board needs a way to be connected to a power source. The Arduino UNO

can be powered from a USB cable coming from your computer or a wall power supply that is

terminated in a barrel jack. In the picture above the USB connection is labeled (1) and the barrel

jack is labeled (2).

The USB connection is also how you will load code onto your Arduino board.
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Pins (5V, 3.3V, GND, Analog, Digital, PWM, AREF)

The pins on your Arduino are the places where you connect wires to construct a circuit

(probably in conjuction with a breadboard and some wire. They usually have black plastic

headers that allow you to just plug a wire right into the board. The Arduino has several

different kinds of pins, each of which is labeled on the board and used for different functions.

GND (3): Short for Ground. There are several GND pins on the Arduino, any of which

can be used to ground your circuit.

5V (4) & 3.3V (5) : As you might guess, the 5V pin supplies 5 volts of power, and the

3.3V pin supplies 3.3 volts of power. Most of the simple components used with the

Arduino run happily off of 5 or 3.3 volts.

Analog (6) : The area of pins under the Analog In label (A0 through A5 on the UNO)

are Analog In pins. These pins can read the signal from an analog sensor (like a

temperature sensor) and convert it into a digital value that we can read.

Digital (7) : Across from the analog pins are the digital pins (0 through 13 on the UNO).

These pins can be used for both digital input (like telling if a button is pushed) and digital

output (like powering an LED).

PWM (8) : You may have noticed the tilde (~) next to some of the digital pins (3, 5, 6, 9,

10, and 11 on the UNO). These pins act as normal digital pins, but can also be used for

something called Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM). These pins are able to simulate

analog output (like fading an LED in and out).

AREF (9) : Stands for Analog Reference. Most of the time you can leave this pin alone.

It is sometimes used to set an external reference voltage (between 0 and 5 Volts) as the

upper limit for the analog input pins.

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Reset Button

Just like the original Nintendo, the Arduino has a reset button (10). Pushing it will

temporarily connect the reset pin to ground and restart any code that is loaded on the Arduino.

This can be very useful if your code doesnt repeat, but you want to test it multiple times. Unlike

the original Nintendo however, blowing on the Arduino doesnt usually fix any problems.

Power LED Indicator

Just beneath and to the right of the word UNO on your circuit board, theres a tiny LED

next to the word ON (11). This LED should light up whenever you plug your Arduino into a

power source. If this light doesnt turn on, theres a good chance something is wrong. Time to re-

check your circuit!

TX RX LEDs

TX is short for transmit, RX is short for receive. These markings appear quite a bit in

electronics to indicate the pins responsible for serial communication. In our case, there are two

places on the Arduino UNO where TX and RX appear once by digital pins 0 and 1, and a

second time next to the TX and RX indicator LEDs (12). These LEDs will give us some nice

visual indications whenever our Arduino is receiving or transmitting data (like when were

loading a new program onto the board).

Main IC

The black thing with all the metal legs is an IC, or Integrated Circuit (13). Think of it as

the brains of our Arduino. The main IC on the Arduino is slightly different from board type to

board type, but is usually from the ATmega line of ICs from the ATMEL company. This can be

important, as you may need to know the IC type (along with your board type) before loading up

a new program from the Arduino software. This information can usually be found in writing on
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the top side of the IC. If you want to know more about the difference between various ICs,

reading the datasheets is often a good idea.

Voltage Regulator

The voltage regulator (14) is not actually something you can (or should) interact with on

the Arduino. But it is potentially useful to know that it is there and what its for. The voltage

regulator does exactly what it says it controls the amount of voltage that is let into the Arduino

board. Think of it as a kind of gatekeeper; it will turn away an extra voltage that might harm the

circuit. Of course, it has its limits, so dont hook up your Arduino to anything greater than 20

volts.

Breadboard

A breadboard is a construction base for prototyping of electronics. Originally it was

literally a bread board, a polished piece of wood used for slicing bread. In the 1970s the

solderless breadboard (AKA plugboard, a terminal array board) became available and nowadays

the term "breadboard" is commonly used to refer to these. "Breadboard" is also a synonym for

"prototype".

Because the solderless breadboard does not require soldering, it is reusable. This makes it

easy to use for creating temporary prototypes and experimenting with circuit design. For this

reason, solderless breadboards are also extremely popular with students and in technological

education. Older breadboard types did not have this property. A stripboard (Veroboard) and

similar prototyping printed circuit boards, which are used to build semi-permanent soldered

prototypes or one-offs, cannot easily be reused. A variety of electronic systems may be

Gas Sensor And Air Conditioner Switch 12

prototyped by using breadboards, from small analog and digital circuits to complete central

processing units (CPUs).

Solid Core Jumper Wires

A jump wire (also known as jumper, jumper wire, jumper cable, DuPont wire, or DuPont

cable named for one manufacturer of them) is an electrical wire or group of them in a cable

with a connector or pin at each end (or sometimes without them simply "tinned"), which is

normally used to interconnect the components of a breadboard or other prototype or test circuit,

internally or with other equipment or components, without soldering. Individual jump wires are

fitted by inserting their "end connectors" into the slots provided in a breadboard, the header
Gas Sensor And Air Conditioner Switch 13

connector of a circuit board, or a piece of test equipment.

LED

A light-emitting diode (LED) is a two-lead semiconductor light source. It is a pn

junction diode, which emits light when activated.When a suitable voltage is applied to the leads,
Gas Sensor And Air Conditioner Switch 14

electrons are able to recombine with electron holes within the device, releasing energy in the

form of photons. This effect is called electroluminescence, and the color of the light

(corresponding to the energy of the photon) is determined by the energy band gap of the

semiconductor.

Resistor

A resistor is an electrical component that limits or regulates the flow of electrical current

in an electronic circuit. Resistors can also be used to provide a specific voltage for an active

device such as a transistor.

All other factors being equal, in a direct-current (DC) circuit, the current through a

resistor is inversely proportional to its resistance, and directly proportional to the voltage across
Gas Sensor And Air Conditioner Switch 15

it. This is the well-known Ohm's Law. In alternating-current (AC) circuits, this rule also applies

as long as the resistor does not contain inductance or capacitance.

Resistors can be fabricated in a variety of ways. The most common type in electronic

devices and systems is the carbon-composition resistor. Fine granulated carbon (graphite) is

mixed with clay and hardened. The resistance depends on the proportion of carbon to clay; the

higher this ratio, the lower the resistance.

Another type of resistor is made from winding Nichrome or similar wire on an insulating

form. This component, called a wirewound resistor, is able to handle higher currents than a

carbon-composition resistor of the same physical size. However, because the wire is wound into

a coil, the component acts as an inductors as well as exhibiting resistance. This does not affect

performance in DC circuits, but can have an adverse effect in AC circuits because inductance

renders the device sensitive to changes in frequen

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MG-811 CO2 Sensor Module

This sensor module has an MG-811 onboard as the sensor component. There is an

onboard signal conditioning circuit for amplifying output signal and an onboard heating circuit

for heating the sensor. The MG-811 is highly sensitive to CO2 and less sensitive to alcohol and

CO. It could be used in air quality control, ferment process, in-door air monitoring application.

The output voltage of the module falls as the concentration of the CO2 increases.

Relay

A relay is an electrically operated switch. Many relays use an electromagnet to

mechanically operate a switch, but other operating principles are also used, such as solid-state

relays. Relays are used where it is necessary to control a circuit by a separate low-power signal,

or where several circuits must be controlled by one signal. The first relays were used in long
Gas Sensor And Air Conditioner Switch 17

distance telegraph circuits as amplifiers: they repeated the signal coming in from one circuit and

re-transmitted it on another circuit. Relays were used extensively in telephone exchanges and

early computers to perform logical operations.

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Methods

We connect the LEDs on the breadboard

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These LEDs are now connected with Arduino board

The green LED is connected with pin 12

And the red one with pin 11

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We put 4 wires in the MG-811 sensor.

We connect 3 of them with arduino. The purple one TEM with pin A3 and the green one

AOUT with pin A5. The yellow one DOUT with pin 2.
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The blue wire GND is connected with ground.

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We will use the green wire VCC for later.

We connect the Relay with 3 wires.

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The yellow wire is connected with GND. The black wire is connected with Ground. The

blue wire is connected with 3 volt pin.

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We use another black wire to connect GND from arduino board to the ground in

breadboard.
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This is a feeder made to be connected with the sensor and the ground.

We connect the red wire with VCC of the sensor. And the black one with the ground.
Gas Sensor And Air Conditioner Switch 27

After that we use another feeder to be connected with the Fan. In this experiment instead

of the A.C. I'll be using a fan. Later a video with the A.C. will be made.
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We use 2 pins to connect the relay.

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A black pin will connect the negative of the feeder with the fan.
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The white pin of the relay with be connected with the positive side of the feeder.

The yellow pin will be connected with the fan.

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The machine is finished. The code that are used are made to light the green light up when

is detected a lot of CO2 and the fan will turn on. This change is made to be shown in public in a

faster way, the fan will clean the air and show that the sensor will turn it off when the CO2 is

decreased. But in fact the original project is the vice versa, this way is used to decrease more

time in showing the project and that the whole project is functional.
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Results

After all the procedures we resulted that the co2 is going to decrease its production after

the experiment is used in the air conditioner. The ambient is going to be a fresher place than

before without resulting with the loss of cool or warmth of the conditioner. The energy is going

to be automatically saved around 10% to 15%. We will result in a healthier and safer place for

our organism and also the experiment is a good energy saving tip.
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Time needed to turn

PPM Time needed to turn ON
Testing times OFF
(Threshold 400) (In seconds)
(In seconds)

1 632 1 4

2 522 1 3

3 871 2 6

4 899 2 6

5 1297 2 10

6 780 1 5

A.C. CO2 Emission in a hour

1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400 PPM (Particles
200 Per Million)2
0
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Disscusion

By using this invention which is built by connecting the relay, breadboard and MG-811

sensor with arduino will help us in decreasing of the excess amount of CO2 that is emitted by

A.C. All these gadgets are connected with wires in special pins. The code is going to give its

functions to the experiment and react as required. The CO2 mass is going to be measured by the

CO2 sensor and show up in the laptop for as many time as decided. The Relay is going to send

its digital signal to the A.C. to switch it off when a large amount of pollution is detected, this

action will help in decreasing the build-up of harmful things. After the air quality is adjusted

another digital signal with switch the A.C. on. This will repeat each time the machine finds it

risky for our health. It as well wont affect a lot in the warmth or the cold of the ambient since it

needs a short period of time to switch on again . A fresher and healthier ambient will be created

for us and a decrease in energy will happen. This project can also be considered as a good energy

saving tip.
Gas Sensor And Air Conditioner Switch 36

Acknowledgement

I gratefully thank everyone who supported me throughout the course of ASEF project. I

am thankful for their aspiring guidance, invaluably constructive criticism and friendly advice

during the project work. I am sincerely grateful to them for sharing their truthful and illuminating

views on a number of issues related to the project. I express my warm thanks to my Parents and

Mr. Oven Bregu for their support and guidance. I would like to thank my teacher Ms. Laureta

Hoxha for their guidance and constant supervision and their extraordinary support in this thesis

process.

Thank You,

Megi Marku
Gas Sensor And Air Conditioner Switch 37

Conclusion

We are always trying to find big and complicated ideas to decrease air pollution, but at

first we should start with small steps and concentrate in the small things that we can do.

Decreasing of CO2 in the air conditioner is a beneficial idea, really helpful not only for

decreasing the amount of the CO2 gas but also it is a good energy saving tip and it will result

with no loss of heat or cold from the ambient. This experiment will work with the amount of

CO2 in air by detecting it with our MG-811 sensor, the CO2 gas the unit of our measured in

ppm, 'parts per million' by volume. A decrease of the harmful gas will be displayed and resulting

with a fresher and healthier environment like houses, offices, schools etc. A way to improve my

invention in future would be to reduce it in size and to become more practical and aesthetic

object, why not putting it inside each conditioner likewise to be addapted in each type of

conditioner.I'm fully confident that this invention will really be a successful and a valuable

project in future.
Gas Sensor And Air Conditioner Switch 38

References

1. Arduino Offical Website

2. Sandbox Electronics - MG-811 CO2 Sensor Module

3. What your appliances cost you and how much CO2 they emit - ec.europa.eu