Plasma optical emission spectrometry with a capacitively coupled microwave plasma (CMP) operated with air has been investigated with respect to its possibilities for real-time environmental monitoring of combustion processes. The unique feature is the possibility to operate the CMP with air as working gas, as is usually the case in exhaust gases of combustion processes. The CMP also is shown to be stable in the presence of large amounts of water and CO 2, which makes this source ideally suitable for this purpose. The detection limits obtained for the environmentally relevant elements Cd, Co, Cr, Fe, Mg, Ni and Pb show the possibility to monitor directly heavy metals in air in an on-line mode and down to the 2–160-μg m −3 level. These detection limits are generally lower than the threshold limit values of the ‘Federal Law for Immission Protection’ in Germany in the gaseous effluents of industrial plants. In order to investigate the influence of the water loading (32–222 g m −3) on the detection limits a comparison of results obtained with three different nebulizers (Légère nebulizer, hydraulic high-pressure nebulizer and ultrasonic nebulizer) was made, with which aerosols with different water loading are entered into the plasma. For the hydraulic high-pressure nebulizer and the ultrasonic nebulizer no desolvation unit was found to be necessary. It was shown that especially for elements with lines having high excitation energy (Cd) or for which ion lines are used (Mg II) the increase in water loading deteriorates the detection limits. The rotational temperatures ( T rot) and excitation temperatures ( T exe) in the case of different amounts of water are of the order of 3700–4900 K and 4700–7100 K, respectively. The temperatures show that changes in the geometry and temperature distribution in the case of T rot but also the values of T exe themselves are responsible for this increase in detection limits. Furthermore, different amounts of CO 2 mixed to the working gas (3–22%) while the total gas flow rate was kept constant at 1.2 l min −1 were also shown to increase the detection limits.