Understanding the efectiveness of national air pollution controls is important for control policy design to improve the future air quality in China. This study evaluated the efectiveness of major national control policies implemented recently in China through a modeling analysis. The sulfur dioxide(SO2) control policy during the 11th Five Year Plan period(2006–2010) had succeeded in reducing the national SO2emission in 2010 by 14% from its 2005 level, which correspondingly reduced ambient SO2and sulfate(SO4 2) concentrations by 13%–15% and 8%–10% respectively over east China. The nitrogen oxides(NOx) control policy during the 12th Five Year Plan period(2011–2015) targets the reduction of the national NOx emission in 2015 by 10% on the basis of 2010. The simulation results suggest that such a reduction in NOx emission will reduce the ambient nitrogen dioxide(NO2), nitrate(NO3), 1-hr maxima ozone(O3) concentrations and total nitrogen deposition by 8%, 3%–14%, 2% and 2%–4%, respectively over east China. The application of new emission standards for power plants will further reduce the NO2, NO3, 1-hr maxima O3concentrations and total nitrogen deposition by 2%–4%, 1%–6%, 0–2% and 1%–2%, respectively. Sensitivity analysis was conducted to evaluate the inter-provincial impacts of emission reduction in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and the Yangtze River Delta, which indicated the need to implement joint regional air pollution control.
PM2.5 and gaseous pollutants(SO2,HNO2,HNO3,HCl,and NH3) were simultaneously collected by Partisol- Model 2300 Sequential Speciation Sampler with denuder-filter pack system in the spring of 2013 in Beijing.Water-soluble inorganic ions and gaseous pollutants were measured by Ion Chromatography.Results showed that the concentrations of NH3,NH+ 4and PM2.5 had similar diurnal variation trends and their concentrations were higher at night than in daytime.The results of gas-to-particle conversion revealed that [NH3]:[NH+4] ratio was usually higher than 1; however,it was less than 1 and the concentration of NH+4 increased significantly during the haze episode,indicating that NH3 played an important role in the formation of fine particle.Research on the sampling artifacts suggested that the volatilization loss of NH+4 was prevalent in the traditional single filter-based sampling.The excess loss of HNO3 and HCl resulted from ammonium-poor aerosols and semivolatile inorganic species had severe losses in the clean day,whereas the mass of NH+ 4was usually overestimated during the single filter-based sampling due to the positive artifacts.Correlation analysis was used to evaluate the influence of meteorological conditions on the volatilization loss of NH+4.It was found that the average relative humidity and temperature had great effects on the loss of NH+4.The loss of NH+4 was significantly under high temperature and low humidity,and tended to increase with the increasing of absorption of gaseous pollutants by denuder.The total mass of volatile loss of NH+4,NO- 3and Cl- could not be ignored and its maximum value was 12.17 μg m-3.Therefore it is important to compensate sampling artifacts for semivolatile inorganic species.
Perfluorooctanoic acid(PFOA), a persistent organic pollutant, receives increasing concerns due to its worldwide occurrence and resistance to most conventional treatment processes.The photochemical decomposition by 185 nm vacuum ultraviolet(VUV) is one of the efficient methods for PFOA decomposition. The effects of p H on PFOA decomposition in nitrogen atmosphere or oxygen atmosphere were investigated. At its original p H(4.5) of PFOA aqueous solution, PFOA decomposed efficiently both in nitrogen and in oxygen atmosphere. However, when the p H increased to 12.0, PFOA decomposition was greatly inhibited in oxygen atmosphere, while it was greatly accelerated in nitrogen atmosphere with a very short half-life time(9 min). Furthermore, fluorine atoms originally contained in PFOA molecules were almost completely transformed into fluoride ions. Two decomposition pathways have been proposed to explain the PFOA decomposition under different conditions. In acidic and neutral solutions, PFOA predominantly decomposes via the direct photolysis in both atmospheres; while in the alkaline solution and in the absence of oxygen,the decomposition of PFOA is mainly induced by hydrated electrons.
