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Underestimated benefits of NOx control in reducing SNA and O3 based on missing heterogeneous HONO sources

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Abstract

Substantial NOx emission mitigation is crucial for the synergistic reduction of particulate matter and ozone (O3) pollution in China. The traditional air quality model does not consider heterogeneous HONO chemistry, leading to uncertainties in estimating the benefits of NOx control. Previous studies have shown that the parameterization of heterogeneous HONO formation increases both the simulated value of sulfate–nitrate–ammonium (SNA) and that of O3, thus adding the heterogeneous reactions of HONO into air quality models inevitably leads to changes in the estimated benefits of NOx abatement. Here we investigated the changes in SNA and O3 concentrations from NOx emission reduction before and after adding heterogeneous HONO reactions in the Community Multi-Scale Air Quality (CMAQ) model. Including heterogeneous HONO reactions in the simulation improved the benefits of NOx reduction in terms of SNA control in winter. With 80% NOx reduction, the reduction in SNA increased from 36.9% without considering heterogeneous HONO reactions to 42.8% with heterogeneous HONO chemistry. The reduction in the maximum daily 8h average (MDA8) O3 in summer caused by NOx reduction increased slightly from 4.7% to 5.2% after adding heterogeneous HONO reactions. The results in this study highlight the enhanced effectiveness of NOx controls for the reduction of SNA and O3 after considering heterogeneous HONO formation in a complex chemical ambient, demonstrating the importance of NOx controls in reducing PM2.5 and O3 pollution in China.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the Innovation Platform for Academicians of Hainan Province (No. YSPTZX202205), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2022YFC3703404), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 22276205), the Excellent Young Talents Project of Yellow River Conservancy Commission (No. HQK-202313); the Research and Development Project of Yellow River Institute of Hydraulic Research (No. HKY-YF-2022-02). This work was completed on the “Explorer 100” cluster system of Tsinghua National Laboratory for Information Science and Technology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Shuping Zhang, Haotian Zheng, Yao Shi, Fenfen Zhang, Yueqi Jiang & Jia Xing

  2. China Academy of Civil Aviation Science and Technology, Beijing, 100028, China

    Shuping Zhang

  3. State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China

    Shuping Zhang, Jun Liu, Tianzeng Chen, Chaoyang Xue & Biwu Chu

  4. Yellow River Institute of Hydraulic Research, Zhengzhou, 450003, China

    Xiangping Zhang

  5. Centre for Climate Research Singapore, Meteorological Service Singapore, Singapore, 537054, Singapore

    Shovan Kumar Sahu

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  1. Shuping Zhang
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  2. Haotian Zheng
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  3. Jun Liu
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  4. Yao Shi
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  10. Shovan Kumar Sahu
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  11. Biwu Chu
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  12. Jia Xing
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Correspondence to Biwu Chu or Jia Xing.

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Highlights

• Heterogeneous HONO reactions significantly improve HONO simulation in summer.

• Heterogeneous HONO reactions increase the formation of winter SNA and summer O3

• NOx emission reduction in BTH both cut down winter SNA and summer MDA8 O3

• HONO heterogeneous reactions improve NOx reduction benefits in SNA and O3 control.

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Zhang, S., Zheng, H., Liu, J. et al. Underestimated benefits of NOx control in reducing SNA and O3 based on missing heterogeneous HONO sources. Front. Environ. Sci. Eng. 18, 30 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-024-1790-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-024-1790-y

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