The purpose of this study is to establish the source profiles and fingerprinters of particulate matters (PM) emitted from various major stationary pollution sources in Taiwan, including power plant, steel manufacturing, cement mill/clinker and petroleum refining. To achieve this goal, PM of aerodynamic diameter less than 100 m (total particulate matter, TSP) emitted from 13 eligible plants were collected isokinetically using an in-stack sampling device. The ambient TSP in the surrounding air of these plants was also simultaneously measured in order to estimate the fugitive emissions. The target metals in all aerosol samples were analyzed by ICP-MS. The result shows that the major elements such as Al, Fe, Na, Mg, K and Ca emitted from all the stacks were very similar; however, abundance of Ca, Fe, K were, respectively, found in cement mills/clinkers, steel arc and steel sintering. It is also found that some trace metals such as As, Se and Ge (coal power plant), K, Fe, Mn, Pb, Zn, Cr and Sn (steel plant), Ca, Sr, Ti, Tl and Cs (cement mill), Co, Ni, V, Sb, La and P (heavy oil burning) along with La, Nd and Ce (petroleum refining) could be regarded as tracers for the specific sources. High enrichment factor (EF) values for Se, Tl, Ga, As, Pb, Zn, Cd, Sn, Sb and Ge in all sources indicate that these elements were profoundly from anthropogenic origins. Furthermore, we constructed some fingerprinting ratios in different sources: (1)As/Se and Se/Ti for power plants; (2)Fe/Al, Mn/Ti, Cu/Ba, Zn/Cu, Cr/Ti along with Cr/Ni for steel arc; (3)Rb/K in steel sintering; (4) Tl/Ca, Tl/Se, Tl/As, Tl/Ga and Rb/Cs for cement plant; (5) Co/Ti, Ni/Ti and Cu/Sb for heavy oil combustion; (6)La/Ce and La/Nd for petroleum refining. The specific ratio will be a powerful tool to qualitatively identify the pollution sources of atmospheric PM. The result for emission factor reflects that the emissions of PM from stack were much higher than those from fugitive process in all stationary sources. Finally, the source profiles were employed to assess the source apportionments of atmospheric primary PM at Taoyuan and Zhudong sampling sites. At Taoyuan sampling sites, soil dust (28 %) was the predominant source of primary PM, followed by traffic emissions (22 %), power plant (17 %), steel manufacturing (13 %), cement mills (10 %) and petroleum refining (10 %). For Zhudong sites, soil dust (40 %) contributes largest fractions of airborne primary PM, followed by vehicle fleets (34 %), cement mills (16 %), petroleum refinery (6 %) and steel plants (4 %).
