Elements and Their Compounds in Indoor Environments

Recognition that Pb-contaminated house dust is a major source of Pb exposure for young children inspired research into other inorganic constituents of house dust, and by the early 2000s multi-element indoor data became available for many towns and cities in the U.K. and continental Europe, North America, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. This research has revealed another widespread phenomenon concentrations of many key metals and metalloids, including Pb, Hg, As, Cd, Cu, Zn, and Sb, are commonly elevated in indoor dust compared to exterior dust and soil in ordinary urban environments (e.g., Thornton etal., 1985 Culbard etal., 1988 Fergusson and Kim, 1991 Kim and Fergusson, 1993  

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Gulson etal., 1995 Kim etal., 1998 Rasmussen etal., 2001). The precise causes for elemental enrichment in household dust are in most cases unknown, and there is little evidence as to the toxicological impact (with the exception of Pb), but the widespread nature of the observation points to the importance of understanding indoor accumulation processes and indoor sources. 

This chapter outlines current approaches for characterizing elements in settled dust and indoor air, factors influencing the geochemistry of household dust, potential indoor and outdoor sources, and the need for reliable bioavailability data to improve assessments of residential exposures to metals. The emphasis of this chapter is on studies that examine a variety of metals and metalloids in indoor environments. For information on individual elements, the reader is referred to the elemental chapters in Part III, and for information on other indoor sources and pathways (e.g., food and drinking water) and potential effects on human health, the appropriate chapters in Part I and II should be considered. 

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Pingitore NE Jr, Glague J, Amaya MA, Maciejewska B, Reynoso JJ (2009) Urban airborne lead X-ray absorption spectroscopy establishes soil as dominant source. PLoS One 4 e5019 Rasmussen PE (2004a) Elements and their compounds in indoor environments. In Merian E, Anke M, Dinat M et al (eds) Elements and their compounds in the environment. Wiley, Germany, pp 215-234... 

The characterization of elements and their compounds in the indoor environment is a... 

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