Establishment of High-Resolution Atmospheric Mercury Emission Inventories for Chinese Cement Plants Based on the Mass Balance Method

Abstract

China is the world's largest cement-related mercury emitter. Atmospheric mercury inventories for China's cement industry are essential for appraising global mercury emissions and have been widely developed in previous studies associated with considerable uncertainties. In this study, we compiled high tempospatial resolution atmospheric mercury emission inventories for Chinese cement plants using the mass balance method and plantlevel input−output data. The effects of industry policies were investigated based on the inventories for 2007 and 2015. Nationwide emissions increased from 80 to 113 t due to rapid expansion of production and kiln-type substitution yet partly offset by policies involving capacity structure reformation. Pollution decreased in winter in northern China, thanks to the targeting policies. Mercury input, output, and storage in cement kilns in China were estimated. The uncertainty remarkably decreased relative to previous inventories. This study demonstrates the feasibility of establishing high-resolution emission inventories with the application of the mass balance method for all the individual plants nationwide and thus has implications for similar studies. This work also improves our understanding of the spatial patterns and temporal evolution of mercury emissions in China, thus offering references for the implementation of environment policies and the Minamata Convention on Mercury in China.

Rapid Increase in China’s Industrial Ammonia Emissions: Evidence from Unit-Based Mapping

“…Monte Carlo simulation was employed to generate the probabilistic distribution of atmospheric NH 3 emissions in each industrial sector, ,− and we ran the models for 10 000 iterations in accordance with previous studies. The distribution of industrial NH 3 concentrations was set following published literature .…”

Measurement report: Atmospheric mercury in a coastal city of Southeast China – inter-annual variations and influencing factors

“…In previous studies, the impact of anthropogenic emissions changes was often quantified by compiling emission inventories (Zhang et al, 2015;Wu et al, 2016;K. Liu et al, 2019;Cai et al, 2020). The trajectory-based analysis method was frequently applied to analyze the impact of regional transport (Tang et al, 2018;Wang et al, 2021).…”

Heterogeneous Variations on Historical and Future Trends of CO2 and Multiple Air Pollutants from the Cement Production Process in China: Emission Inventory, Spatial–Temporal Characteristics, and Scenario Projections

“…Meanwhile, based on data of the continuous emission monitoring system (CEMS), Tang et al estimated emissions of PM, SO 2 , and NOx in 2018 were 0.07, 0.09, and 0.88 Mt, respectively. In addition, some studies conducted relevant estimations on mercury emissions, − ,− and Hua et al were also concerned about emissions of some other toxic trace elements (e.g. Cd, Cr, Pb, etc.…”

“…Wu et al indicated that clinker production was the largest source of anthropogenic atmospheric Hg emissions in China after 2009, with emissions of 145 t in 2014 (27.4% of national emissions). Based on mass balance method with plant-level data, Cai et al estimated that the atmospheric Hg emissions of the national cement industry increased from 80 t (2007) to 113 t (2015). As for CO 2 emissions, more and more studies had gradually focused on updating localized emission factors (EFs) to better reflect the real world of Chinese cement production. ,,− Shen et al calculated the CO 2 EFs by analyzing samples from 359 cement production lines nationwide, finding that the values suggested by international institutes were slightly overestimated, and fuel-related CO 2 EFs were mainly underestimated. , Thus, it is necessary to update and summarize EFs with unit-level activity data for the new estimates of air pollutants and CO 2 emissions.…”