Emission factors and light absorption properties of brown carbon from household coal combustion in China

Autor(en)

Jianzhong Sun, Guorui Zhi, Regina Hitzenberger, Yingjun Chen, Chongguo Tian, Yayun Zhang, Yanli Feng, Miaomiao Cheng, Yuzhe Zhang, Jing Cai, Feng Chen, Yiqin Qiu, Zhiming Jiang, Jun Li, Gan Zhang, Yangzhi Mo

Abstrakt

Brown carbon (BrC) draws increasing attention due to its effects on climate and other environmental factors. In China, household coal burned for heating and cooking purposes releases huge amounts of carbonaceous particles every year; however, BrC emissions have rarely been estimated in a persuasive manner due to the unavailable emission characteristics. Here, seven coals jointly covering geological maturity from low to high were burned in four typical stoves as both chunk and briquette styles. The optical integrating sphere (IS) method was applied to measure the emission factors (EFs) of BrC and black carbon (BC) via an iterative process using the different spectral dependence of light absorption for BrC and BC and using humic acid sodium salt (HASS) and carbon black (CarB) as reference materials. The following results have been found: (i) the average EFs of BrC for anthracite coal chunks and briquettes are 1.08±0.80 and 1.52±0.16 g kg

^-1, respectively, and those for bituminous coal chunks and briquettes are 8.59±2.70 and 4.01±2.19 g kg

^-1, respectively, reflecting a more significant decline in BrC EFs for bituminous coals than for anthracites due to briquetting. (ii) The BrC EF peaks at the middle of coal's geological maturity, displaying a bell-shaped curve between EF and volatile matter (V

_daf). (iii) The calculated BrC emissions from China's residential coal burning amounted to 592 Gg (1 Gg=10

⁹ g) in 2013, which is nearly half of China's total BC emissions. (iv) The absorption Ångström exponents (AAEs) of all coal briquettes are higher than those of coal chunks, indicating that the measure of coal briquetting increases the BrC =BC emission ratio and thus offsets some of the climate cooling effect of briquetting. (v) In the scenario of current household coal burning in China, solar light absorption by BrC (350-850 nm in this study) accounts for more than a quarter (0.265) of the total absorption. This implies the significance of BrC to climate modeling.

Organisation(en)

Aerosolphysik und Umweltphysik

Externe Organisation(en)

Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Tongji University, China University of Petroleum, Shanghai University, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)

Journal

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics

Band

17

Seiten

4769-4780

Anzahl der Seiten

12

ISSN

1680-7316

DOI

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-4769-2017

Publikationsdatum

04-2017

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

103037 Umweltphysik, 103039 Aerosolphysik

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Atmospheric Science

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 13 – Maßnahmen zum Klimaschutz

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/cd92966a-4153-4d97-880d-3ca3e5979d23