Abstract

Several methods are in use for the identification of the contribution of particulate associated environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and sidestream smoke to an atmosphere. These include the measurement of respirable suspended particulates (RSP), measurements of the total UV absorption and total fluorescence emission of a methanol extract of collected particulates and the use of specific marker compounds such as solanesol and scopoletin. Use of these methods gave values for the contribution of particulate ETS to total respirable (≤5 µm) particulates in the ranges 8.3–124.7% for smokers' houses and 9.6–121.2% for smokers' offices, respectively. However, using what we consider to be the most reliable methodology, based on the measurement of solanesol, the average contribution of particulate ETS to total respirable (≤5 µm) particulates for smokers' houses was 21.7% and for smokers' offices was 23.3%.