Huge amount of particulate matter are endlessly released in the atmosphere by anthropogenic, industrial and natural sources. Since aerosols play a fundamental role in the physical and chemical processes governing the global climate and strongly affects human health as wells their characterisation focus a steadily growing interest. In the present work, the usefulness of ToF-SIMS and XPS for aerosol characterisation is evaluated. In particular, urban aerosols are considered for introductory assessment of techniques helpfulness for pollution-related studies. (C) 2002 Elsevier. Science B.V. All rights reserved.