Abstract
Rapid industrialization and urbanization in developing countries has led to an increase in air pollution, along a similar trajectory to that previously experienced by the developed nations1. In China, particulate pollution is a serious environmental problem that is influencing air quality, regional and global climates, and human health2,3. In response to the extremely severe and persistent haze pollution experienced by about 800 million people during the first quarter of 2013 (refs 4, 5), the Chinese State Council announced its aim to reduce concentrations of PM2.5 (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter less than 2.5 micrometres) by up to 25 per cent relative to 2012 levels by 2017 (ref. 6). Such efforts however require elucidation of the factors governing the abundance and composition of PM2.5, which remain poorly constrained in China3,7,8. Here we combine a comprehensive set of novel and state-of-the-art offline analytical approaches and statistical techniques to investigate the chemical nature and sources of particulate matter at urban locations in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xi’an during January 2013. We find that the severe haze pollution event was driven to a large extent by secondary aerosol formation, which contributed 30–77 per cent and 44–71 per cent (average for all four cities) of PM2.5 and of organic aerosol, respectively. On average, the contribution of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) and secondary inorganic aerosol (SIA) are found to be of similar importance (SOA/SIA ratios range from 0.6 to 1.4). Our results suggest that, in addition to mitigating primary particulate emissions, reducing the emissions of secondary aerosol precursors from, for example, fossil fuel combustion and biomass burning is likely to be important for controlling China’s PM2.5 levels and for reducing the environmental, economic and health impacts resulting from particulate pollution.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
£199.00 per year
only £3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on SpringerLink
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Seinfeld, J. H. Air pollution: a half century of progress. Am. Inst. Chem. Eng. J. 50, 1096–1108 (2004)
Wang, Y., Zhang, R. Y. & Saravanan, R. Asian pollution climatically modulates mid-latitude cyclones following hierarchical modeling and observational analysis. Nature Commun. 5, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms4098 (2014)
Cao, J. J. Pollution status and control strategies of PM2. 5 in China. J. Earth Environ. 3, 1030–1036 (2012)
China National Environmental Monitoring Centre. Air Quality Report in 74 Chinese Cities in March and the First Quarter 2013 (http://www.cnemc.cn/publish/106/news/news_34605.html (in Chinese), accessed on, 11 June 2013)
Chen, R. J., Zhao, Z. H. & Kan, H. D. Heavy smog and hospital visits in Beijing, China. Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. 188, 1170–1171 (2013)
Chinese State Council. Atmospheric Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan (http://www.gov.cn/zwgk/2013-09/12/content_2486773.htm (in Chinese), accessed on, 12 September 2013)
Zhang, Q., He, K. B. & Huo, H. Cleaning China’s air. Nature 484, 161–162 (2012)
Yang, F. et al. Characteristics of PM2. 5 speciation in representative megacities and across China. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 11, 5207–5219 (2011)
Wuebbles, D. J., Lei, H. & Lin, J. T. Intercontinental transport of aerosols and photochemical oxidants from Asia and its consequences. Environ. Pollut. 150, 65–84 (2007)
Jimenez, J. L. et al. Evolution of organic aerosols in the atmosphere. Science 326, 1525–1529 (2009)
Watson, J. G. et al. CMB8 Applications and Validation Protocol for PM2.5 and VOCs (US Environmental Protection Agency and Desert Research Institute, Reno, Nevada, 1998)
Canonaco, F., Crippa, M., Slowik, J. G., Baltensperger, U. & Prévôt, A. S. H. SoFi, an IGOR-based interface for the efficient use of the generalized multilinear engine (ME-2) for source apportionment: ME-2 application to aerosol mass spectrometer data. Atmos. Meas. Tech. 6, 3649–3661 (2013)
DeCarlo, P. F. et al. Field-deployable, high-resolution, time-of-flight aerosol mass spectrometer. Anal. Chem. 78, 8281–8289 (2006)
Orasche, J., Schnelle-Kreis, J., Abbaszade, G. & Zimmermann, R. Technical note: in-situ derivatization thermal desorption GC-TOFMS for direct analysis of particle-bound non-polar and polar organic species. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 11, 8977–8993 (2011)
Zhang, Y. L. et al. On the isolation of OC and EC and the optimal strategy of radiocarbon-based source apportionment of carbonaceous aerosols. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 12, 10841–10856 (2012)
Cao, J. J. et al. On the potential high acid deposition in northeastern China. J. Geophys. Res. 118, 4834–4846 (2013)
Robinson, A. L. et al. Rethinking organic aerosols: semivolatile emissions and photochemical aging. Science 315, 1259–1262 (2007)
Zheng, M. et al. Seasonal trends in PM2. 5 source contributions in Beijing, China. Atmos. Environ. 39, 3967–3976 (2005)
Wang, G. H. et al. High loadings and source strengths of organic aerosols in China. Geophys. Res. Lett. 33, L22801 (2006)
Atkinson, R. & Arey, J. Atmospheric degradation of volatile organic compounds. Chem. Rev. 103, 4605–4638 (2003)
Wang, X. F. et al. The secondary formation of inorganic aerosols in the droplet mode through heterogeneous aqueous reactions under haze conditions. Atmos. Environ. 63, 68–76 (2012)
Ervens, B., Turpin, B. J. & Weber, R. J. Secondary organic aerosol formation in cloud droplets and aqueous particles (aqSOA): a review of laboratory, field and model studies. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 11, 11069–11102 (2011)
Seinfeld, J. H. & Pandis, S. N. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics: From Air Pollution to Climate Change 2nd edn (Wiley, 2006)
Hallquist, M. et al. The formation, properties and impact of secondary organic aerosol: current and emerging issues. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 9, 5155–5236 (2009)
Wang, X. et al. Characterization of organic aerosol produced during pulverized coal combustion in a drop tube furnace. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 13, 10919–10932 (2013)
Wang, Y., Zhang, Q. Q., He, K., Zhang, Q. & Chai, L. Sulfate-nitrate-ammonium aerosols over China: response to 2000–2015 emission changes of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and ammonia. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 13, 2635–2652 (2013)
Xing, J. et al. Projections of air pollutant emissions and its impacts on regional air quality in China in 2020. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 11, 3119–3136 (2011)
Tiwari, S. et al. Diurnal and seasonal variations of black carbon and PM2.5 over New Delhi, India: Influence of meteorology. Atmos. Res. 125–126, 50–62 (2013)
The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). Africa Environment Outlook 3: Our Environment, Our Health (2013); available at http://www.unep.org/pdf/aeo3.pdf
The World Health Organization (WHO). 7 Million Premature Deaths Annually Linked to Air Pollution (published online 25 March 2014); available at http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-pollution/en/
Acknowledgements
The research leading to these results received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 290605, the Swiss National Science Foundation (SAPMAV, no.200021_13016, WOOSHI, no. 200021L_140590, and Ambizione, PZ00P2_131673), the Swiss Competence Centers Environment and Sustainability as well as Energy and Mobility under project OPTIWARES, the National Science Foundation of China (no. 40925009), the “Strategic Priority Research Program” of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA05100402), and the Helmholtz Virtual Institute of Complex Molecular Systems in Environmental Health – Aerosol and Health (HICE). The help of G. Salazar (University of Bern) during 14C analysis is acknowledged.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
R.-J.H., I.E.H. and C.B. wrote the paper. R.-J.H., J.-J.C. and A.S.H.P. designed the study. R.-J.H., I.E.H., C.B. and K.R.D. performed the offline AMS analysis. Y.Z., P.Z. and S. S. performed the 14C analysis. M.S. performed the IC analysis. G.A. and J.S.-K. performed the TD-GC-MS analysis. R.-J.H., I.E.H., C.B. and A.S.H.P. analysed the data. All authors reviewed and commented on the paper.
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
This file contains additional information on the sample collection and sampling sites (Section 1); details of the chemical analysis (Section 2); extensive evaluation of a set of environmentally optimal solutions for source apportionment of PM2.5 and OC using the CMB and ME-2 models (Section 3); evaluation of model uncertainty and the sensitivity of the results to model inputs as well as the estimate of the contribution of fossil and non-fossil sources to secondary organic aerosol (Section 4); examination of potentially unidentified sources (Section 5); representativeness of the measurement sites (Section 6) and relevance of SOA formation (Section 7). The Supplementary Information also includes Supplementary Figures S1-S30, Supplementary Tables S1-S3 and additional references. (PDF 2634 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Huang, RJ., Zhang, Y., Bozzetti, C. et al. High secondary aerosol contribution to particulate pollution during haze events in China. Nature 514, 218–222 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13774
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13774
This article is cited by
-
The relationship between atmospheric particulate matter, leaf surface microstructure, and the phyllosphere microbial diversity of Ulmus L.
BMC Plant Biology (2024)
-
Ozone pollution mitigation strategy informed by long-term trends of atmospheric oxidation capacity
Nature Geoscience (2024)
-
New measurements reveal a large contribution of nitrogenous molecules to ambient organic aerosol
npj Climate and Atmospheric Science (2024)
-
Effect of NOX, O3 and NH3 on sulfur isotope composition during heterogeneous oxidation of SO2: a laboratory investigation
Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health (2024)
-
Distribution and Formation Causes of PM2.5 and O3 Double High Pollution Events in China during 2013–20
Advances in Atmospheric Sciences (2024)