Species-specified VOC emissions derived from a gridded study in the Pearl River Delta, China

This study provides a top-down approach to establish an emission inventory of volatile organic compounds (VOC) based on ambient measurements, by combining the box model and positive matrix factorization (PMF) model. Species-specified VOC emissions, source contributions, and spatial distributions are...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2018-02, Vol.8 (1), p.2963-9, Article 2963
Main Authors: Mo, Ziwei, Shao, Min, Liu, Ying, Xiang, Yang, Wang, Ming, Lu, Sihua, Ou, Jiamin, Zheng, Junyu, Li, Meng, Zhang, Qiang, Wang, Xuemei, Zhong, Liuju
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
704/172/169
704/445/824
Alkanes
Anthropogenic factors
Benzene
Butane
Emission inventories
Emissions
Ethene
Evaporation
Humanities and Social Sciences
multidisciplinary
Organic compounds
p-Xylene
Pentane
Rivers
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Spatial distribution
Species
Toluene
VOCs
Volatile organic compounds
Xylene
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Summary:This study provides a top-down approach to establish an emission inventory of volatile organic compounds (VOC) based on ambient measurements, by combining the box model and positive matrix factorization (PMF) model. Species-specified VOC emissions, source contributions, and spatial distributions are determined based on regional-scale gridded measurements between September 2008 to December 2009 in the Pearl River Delta (PRD), China. The most prevalent anthropogenic species in the PRD was toluene estimated by the box model to be annual emissions of 167.8 ± 100.5 Gg, followed by m,p-xylene (68.0 ± 45.0 Gg), i-pentane (49.2 ± 40.0 Gg), ethene (47.6 ± 27.6 Gg), n-butane (47.5 ± 40.7 Gg), and benzene (46.8 ± 29.0 Gg). Alkanes such as propane, i-butane, and n-pentane were 2–8 times higher in box model than emission inventories (EI). Species with fewer emissions were highly variable between EI and box model results. Hotspots of VOC emissions were identified in southwestern PRD and port areas, which were not reflected by bottom-up EI. This suggests more research is needed for VOC emissions in the EI, especially for fuel evaporation, industrial operations and marine vessels. The species-specified top-down method can help improve the quality of these emission inventories.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-21296-y