Water Soluble Salts: A Comparison of Indoor-Outdoor Concentrations and Deposition Velocities at Four Office Sites

Automatic dichotomous samplers have been used to collect fine and coarse airborne particles during extensive sampling programs at telephone office buildings in Neenah, WI (12 months); Newark, NJ (12 months); Lubbock, TX (3 months); and Wichita, KS (3 months). At each site indoor and outdoor sampling was conducted concurrently. Following collection, selected sets of filters from each site were extracted with distilled water, and the major anions and cations were quantified using ion chromatography. In this manner the airborne concentrations of fine and coarse mode chloride, sulfate, sodium, ammonium. potassium, magnesium, and calcium were determined indoors and outdoors at each of these sites. The accumulation rates of these same ionic substances on vertical and horizontal surfaces within the offices were also quantitatively determined using a previously described procedure (Sinclair, Anal. Chem., 1529 (1982)).