Quantitative assessment of atmospheric emissions of toxic heavy metals from anthropogenic sources in China: historical trend, spatial distribution, uncertainties, and control policies

Abstract

Abstract. Anthropogenic atmospheric emissions of typical toxic heavy metals have caused worldwide concern due to their adverse effects on human health and the ecosystem. By determining the best available representation of time-varying emission factors with S-shape curves, we establish the multiyear comprehensive atmospheric emission inventories of 12 typical toxic heavy metals (Hg, As, Se, Pb, Cd, Cr, Ni, Sb, Mn, Co, Cu, and Zn) from primary anthropogenic activities in China for the period of 1949–2012 for the first time. Further, we allocate the annual emissions of these heavy metals in 2010 at a high spatial resolution of 0.5° × 0.5° grid with ArcGIS methodology and surrogate indexes, such as regional population and gross domestic product (GDP). Our results show that the historical emissions of Hg, As, Se, Cd, Cr, Ni, Sb, Mn, Co, Cu, and Zn, during the period of 1949–2012, increased by about 22–128 times at an annual average growth rate of 5.1–8.0 %, reaching about 526.9–22 319.6 t in 2012. Nonferrous metal smelting, coal combustion of industrial boilers, brake and tyre wear, and ferrous metal smelting represent the dominant sources of heavy metal emissions. In terms of spatial variation, the majority of emissions are concentrated in relatively developed regions, especially for the northern, eastern, and southern coastal regions. In addition, because of the flourishing nonferrous metal smelting industry, several southwestern and central-southern provinces play a prominent role in some specific toxic heavy metals emissions, like Hg in Guizhou and As in Yunnan. Finally, integrated countermeasures are proposed to minimize the final toxic heavy metals discharge on account of the current and future demand of energy-saving and pollution reduction in China.

First long-term and near real-time measurement of trace elements in China's urban atmosphere: temporal variability, source apportionment and precipitation effect

“…These four heavy metals are important associated elements in Cu, Pb and Zn ores. In fact, Cu, Pb and Zn smelting represent the three most common forms of nonferrous metal smelting in China (Tian et al, 2015). Due to high temperatures during the roasting, sintering and smelting process for the extraction of Cu, Pb and Zn from ores, metals like Au, Cd, Ag and Hg in nonferrous metal ores will inevitably be vaporized and released into the flue gas (Pacyna and Pacyna, 2001;.…”

“…Mass loadings of trace elements collected by these samplers can be analyzed with highly sensitive accelerator-based analytical techniques, in particular particle-induced X-ray emission (PIXE) or synchrotron radiation X-ray fluorescence (SR-XRF) Bukowiecki et al, 2005;Maenhaut, 2015;Traversi et al, 2014). More recently, Aerosol Time-Of-Flight Mass Spectrometry (ATOFMS) (Murphy et al, 1998;Gross et al, 2000;DeCarlo et al, 2006), the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST)-traceable reference aerosol generating method (QAG) (Yanca et al, 2006), distance-based detection in a multi-layered device (Cate et al, 2015), environmental magnetic properties coupled with support vector machine , and the Xact 625 automated multi-metals analyzer (Fang et al, 2015;Jeong et al, 2016;Phillips-Smith et al, 2017;Cooper et al, 2010) have been developed for more precise, accurate and frequent measurement of ambient elemental species.…”

“…Shanghai is China's most important gateway for foreign trade and has the world's busiest port, handling over 37 million standard containers in 2016 (see http://www.simic.net.cn/news_show.php?lan= en&id=192101, last access: 1 August 2018). As a consequence, Shanghai is potentially subject to substantial quantities of trace element emissions (Duan and Tan, 2013;Tian et al, 2015). Ambient concentrations of trace element, especially Pb and Hg, in the Shanghai atmosphere have been sporadically reported during the past two decades (Shu et al, 2001;Lu et al, 2008;Zheng et al, 2004;Huang et al, 2013;Wang et al, 2016).…”

Updated atmospheric speciated mercury emissions from iron and steel production in China during 2000–2015

“…Thus, these two processes are potentially important in shaping the trends in ISP Hg emissions. Later long-term emission inventories revised the unique emission factor with dynamic factors by adopting a transformed normal distribution function (Tian et al, 2015;Wu et al, 2016). Such a method was based on the assumption that the emission factor was gradually improved according to the simulation curve and attempted to simulate the impact of technology improvement and pollution control on emission factor variation.…”

Current Status and Atmospheric Mercury Emissions Associated with Large-Scale Gold Smelting Industry in China

“…Nonferrous metal smelting is one of the leading anthropogenic mercury emission sources and takes up a large proportion of the anthropogenic mercury emission inventory (Pacyna et al, 2006;Wu et al, 2006;Pirrone et al, 2010;Tian et al, 2015). Being bound with metal concentrate, mercury can be released to atmosphere in the smelting process, and has adverse effects on surrounding ambient air quality and public health.…”