You are here:
Criteria pollutant impacts of volatile chemical products informed by near-field modeling
Citation:
Qin, M., B. Murphy, K. Isaacs, B. McDonald, Q. Lu, S. McKeen, L. Koval, A. Robinson, C. Efstathiou, C. Allen, AND H. Pye. Criteria pollutant impacts of volatile chemical products informed by near-field modeling. Nature Sustainability. Nature Publishing Group, New York, NY, , 1-57, (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-00614-1
Impact/Purpose:
Volatile chemical products (VCPs), including cleaning agents, personal care products, and coatings evaporate and react in the atmosphere, producing criteria pollutants with negative health outcomes. Here, we show the criteria pollutant formation associated with VCPs is likely underestimated by air quality models due to low solvent usage in U.S. inventories and the lack of effective PM2.5 formation in chemical mechanisms. Results also inform near-field modeling and the role of inhalation vs dermal and ingestion as routes to exposure.
Description:
Volatile chemical products (VCPs), including cleaning agents, personal care products, and coatings, evaporate and react in the atmosphere producing pollutants with adverse human health effects. Here, we show high ambient air emissions from VCP usage (≥ 14 kg person-1 yr-1, 3× higher than current operational methods) are supported by multiple inventory methods and constraints imposed by ambient ozone, OH reactivity, and organic PM2.5 concentrations in Pasadena, California. A near-field exposure model indicates these high air emissions are consistent with product solvent usage up to ~75 kg person-1 yr-1, and inhalation could be more competitive with dermal and ingestion exposure to chemicals than previously thought. After constraining the PM2.5 yield to 5% by mass, VCPs are responsible for ~41% of the photochemical organic PM2.5 (1.1 ± 0.3 μg m-3) and ~17% of maximum daily 8-hr average O3 (9 ±2 ppb) in summer Los Angeles, making them important for criteria pollutant formation.
URLs/Downloads:
DOI: Criteria pollutant impacts of volatile chemical products informed by near-field modeling
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00614-1