Particulate matter (PM) from cooking has caused seriously indoor air pollutant and aroused risk to human health. It is urged to get deep knowledge of their spatial-temporal distribution of source emission characteristics, especially ultrafine particles (UFP < 100 nm) and accumulation mode particles (AMP 100-665 nm). Four commercial cooking oils are auto dipped water to simulate cooking fume under heating to 265 degrees C to investigate PM emission and decay features between 0.03 and 10 mu m size dimension by electrical low pressure impactor (ELPI) without ventilation. Rapeseed and sunflower produced high PM2.5 around 6.1 mg/m(3), in comparison with those of soybean and corn (5.87 and 4.65 mg/m(3), respectively) at peak emission time between 340 and 460 sec since heating oil, but with the same level of particle numbers 6-9 x 10(5)/cm(3). Mean values of PM1.0/PM2.5 and PM2.5/PM10 at peak emission time are around 0.51-0.66 and 0.23-0.29. After 15 min naturally deposition, decay rates of PM1.0, PM2.5 and PM10 are 13.3%-29.8%, 20.1%-33.9% and 41.2%-54.7%, which manifest that PM1.0 is quite hard to decay than larger particles, PM2.5 and PM10. The majority of the particle emission locates at 43 nm with the largest decay rate at 75%, and shifts to a larger size between 137 and 655 nm after 15 min decay. The decay rates of the particles are sensitive to the oil type. (C) 2016 The Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V.