Elemental and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Compositions of House Dust in Brisbane, Australia

Abstract This paper reports the result of a pilot study of the chemical composition of house dust in Brisbane, Australia. The parameters examined included the particle size distribution, carbon content, elemental composition and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon concentrations of dust samples collected from suburban homes Elements like Al, Ca, Mg, Cr, As, Cu, Zn and K were shown to be relatively abundant in the dust samples as were polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons like phenanthrene and fluoranthene. To facilitate the interpretation of the chemical analysis results and aid source identification, information on the composition of the house dusts, along with those on the building characteristics, types of indoor activities and distance of the building from the vehicular emission sources, were subjected to multivariate data projection and multi-criteria ranking. The results showed that the chemical composition of the dusts were strongly dependent on the building designs, distances of the building from the vehicular emission sources and indoor activities