Emission factors of environmentally persistent free radicals in PM 2.5 from rural residential solid fuels combusted in a traditional stove

• Published in: The Science of the total environment 2021-06, Vol.773, p.145151
• Main Authors: Zhao, Jinfeng, Shi, Lin, Duan, Wenyan, Li, Hao, Yi, Peng, Tao, Wenmei, Shen, Guofeng, Tao, Shu, Pan, Bo, Xing, Baoshan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1879-1026

Emission factors (EFs) are crucial for establishing emission inventory and subsequent health risk assessment of pollutants. However, the EFs of environmentally persistent free radicals (EPFRs) in PM have not been well investigated. We measured EPFRs in PM from burning of different solid fuels in a traditional stove widely used in rural China and calculated the EFs of EPFRs (EF ). The characteristics of EPFRs varied greatly with PM depending on the feedstock, and the EF of crop residue, firewood and bitumite was 2.13 ± 1.04, 1.40 ± 0.76 and 1.08 ± 0.39 (10 spins·kg ), respectively. The estimated results of EPFRs emission associated with PM showed that the crop residue was the main contributor to the top four provinces with high EPFRs emissions in China in 2010. A wide range (0.03-4.89 cig·person ·day ) of equivalent cigarette number converted by inhaling EPFRs in PM was observed. Provinces with higher equivalent cigarette number were mainly agricultural provinces, because the rural residents tend to use readily available fuels. Additionally, EPFRs in collected PM during 2 - month photoaging were more stable in particles with higher organic carbon contents. Our findings provided a new insight into the risk assessment of PM from different sources by taking EPFRs into consideration.