Characterization of Classroom Fine Dust in Urban Elementary Schools

In this study, PM10 and PM2.5 were collected in 20 indoor and outdoor spaces of 5 elementary schools in Seoul, and analyzed based on quantitative and qualitative characteristics. The concentrations of PM10 and PM2.5 in the classrooms distributed from 31.0 to 96.4 mu g/m(3) and 14.5 to 40.2 mu g/m(3). The I/O value of PM2.5 was 0.46 to 0.80, indicating that PM2.5 was less in indoors than outdoors. Since there were various sources in the classroom, the organic carbon contained in PM2.5 was 7.1 similar to 12.8 mu g/m(3), which was more than that of inorganic carbon (0.3 similar to 1.6 mu g/m(3)) mainly originated from the outside. Among the metal components, Fe was the most found with an average of 0.226 mu g/m(3), and the concentrations of Pb and As were 0.013 mu g/m(3) and 0.002 mu g/m(3), respectively. The ionic component, NO3-, was the highest at 2.60 mu g/m(3) compared to other ions. Despite the small number of samples (100 filters), this study can contribute to understanding the current school environement by investigating classrooms operating under normal conditions.