Receptor modeling of urban aerosol

An increasing number of reports on adverse health effects of fine particles calls for a more detailed characterization of these ambient particulates and the major contributing sources. To improve the knowledge of the exposure situation we conducted a study to, first, comprehensively characterize the aerosol in the urban atmosphere with respect to size selective chemical composition and various physical aerosol quantities and to, second, apportion the different aerosol quantities to different sources and source types. Special attention was directed to the number concentration of fine and ultrafince particles.