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Abstract Air pollution is a major problem facing all nations of the world. Rapid urban and industrial growth has resulted in vast quantities of potentially harmful waste products being released into the atmosphere. Sources of atmospheric pollution are identified and assessed by receptor models. The fundamental idea of receptor models is to apportion the ambient element concentrations at the receptor site to the various sources which contribute to the mass of total suspended particles at the receptor site. The sources emission is assumed to be characterized by its elemental composition. It is furthermore assumed that under transport from the source to receptor, the source signatures are preserved to such a degree that identification of sources from the element composition at the receptor can be based on knowledge of the sources element composition. In practice, a number of sources with almost chemically similar aerosols are present around the receptor, and at the receptor site the sources emission profile then represents the entire type of sources (Kronborg, et al 1987)1. |