**Acknowledgement**

476 Atmospheric Aerosols – Regional Characteristics – Chemistry and Physics

relative to soil background values in China.

V, Fe, Zn, Cr, Ni, Mn and Cu.

suspended particulate matter.

comparing to the settled one.

minimization and/or elimination.

 and Nadezda Stevulova *Technical University of Kosice, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Institute of Environmental Engineering, Kosice, Slovakia* 

**Author details** 

Adriana Estokova\*

Corresponding Author

 \* the range of 2.23 %.

**7. Conclusion** 

elements were lower than or comparable to those measured outdoors, suggesting that indoor elements originated mainly from outdoor emission sources. On the contrary, the authors in [24] reported the metal elements concentrations analyzed were 3-15 times higher

Anthropogenic sources include fossil fuel combustion, industrial metallurgical processes, vehicle emission and waste incinerations. Natural sources include a variety of processes acting on crustal minerals, such as volcanism, erosion and surface winds, as well as from forest fires and the oceans. Some elements are potentially toxic trace metals, such as Pb, Cd,

Particulate matter exposure that occurs indoors probably constitutes a significant fraction of the overall exposure to hazardous particles since typically people spend most time indoors. The indoor settled as well as suspended particulate matter was monitored and particles morphology and chemical composition with special regard to metal content investigation was performed.

Particles of irregular shapes and various sizes were observed in settled as well as

 Principal inorganic elements constituting the particulate matter such as calcium, silicon, aluminium, potassium, iron, chlorine, magnesium as well as titan and manganese was confirmed. The percentage of inorganic elements mentioned was detected very low in

 Higher percentage of metals content was detected in suspended particulate matter in comparison to the settled particles except for iron and zinc. The measured values of metals content were 4.9 – 15.3 times higher in suspended particulate matter when

There were found out no significant differences of metal surface concentrations in the

The results demonstrate the complexity of indoor particulate matter nature affecting their surface properties. The results also emphasise the need for further research to a more complete understanding of the chemical nature of indoor particulate matter in connection with their surface reactivity. Due to the negative biological influence of particulate matters and their specific properties resulting in synergic effect of the other pollutants in the indoor air it is necessary to investigate the ways of indoor particulate matters occurrence

measured rooms in spite of the various indoor particulate matter sources.

This research has been carried out in terms of the project NFP 26220120037 and NFP 26220120018 supported from the European Union Structural funds. The authors would like to thank following people for their help and suggestions: assoc. prof. Dr. Magdalena Balintova, Ing. Lenka Kubincova, PhD. and Dr. Gabriel Janak from Technical University of Kosice, Slovakia.
