QUANTIFICATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF SUSPENDED PARTICULATE MATTER IN INDOOR AIR

Quantification and characterisation of suspended particulate matter (S PM) from homes in the city of Oslo was carried out. In 29 households t he dust concentrations were found to vary between 9 and 56 mu g/m(3) ( median value 26 mu g/m(3)). In 12 of the 29 households, a thorough ana lysis was carried out to determine the size and element distribution o f the particles using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray microanalysis (XRMA). The vast majority of the collected particles we re less than 2.5 mu m in diameter, i.e. they belonged to the fine frac tion. In this fraction a considerable amount of soot and sulphur parti cles were found, usually less than 1 mu m in diameter. The coarse frac tion (particles > 2.5 mu m in diameter) was found to consist mainly of organic material, silicates and larger soot aggregates. Both a thorou gh analysis of individual particles and a 'bulk analysis' (i.e. record ing XRMA spectra from whole grid masks) were performed, and the two me thods were found to show good agreement. Copyright (C) 1997 Elsevier S cience B.V.