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

Highlights

● Heterogeneous HONO reactions significantly improve HONO simulation in summer.

● Heterogeneous HONO reactions increase the formation of winter SNA and summer O_3.

● NO _x emission reduction in BTH both cut down winter SNA and summer MDA8 O_3.

● HONO heterogeneous reactions improve NO _x reduction benefits in SNA and O₃ control.

Abstract

Substantial NO_x 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 NO_x 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 NO_x abatement. Here we investigated the changes in SNA and O₃ concentrations from NO_x 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 NO_x reduction in terms of SNA control in winter. With 80% NO_x 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 NO_x reduction increased slightly from 4.7% to 5.2% after adding heterogeneous HONO reactions. The results in this study highlight the enhanced effectiveness of NO_x controls for the reduction of SNA and O₃ after considering heterogeneous HONO formation in a complex chemical ambient, demonstrating the importance of NO_x controls in reducing PM_2.5 and O₃ pollution in China.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Heterogeneous HONO / NO_x reduction / PM_2.5 / O₃

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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.

Conflict of Interests

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-024-1790-y and is accessible for authorized users.

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