Impact assessment of ammonia emissions on inorganic aerosols in East China using response surface modeling technique

Ammonia (NH(3)) is one important precursor of inorganic fine particles; however, knowledge of the impacts of NH(3) emissions on aerosol formation in China is very limited. In this study, we have developed China's NH(3) emission inventory for 2005 and applied the Response Surface Modeling (RSM) technique upon a widely used regional air quality model, the Community Multi-Scale Air Quality Model (CMAQ). The purpose was to analyze the impacts of NH(3) emissions on fine particles for January, April, July, and October over east China, especially those most developed regions including the North China Plain (NCP), Yangtze River delta (YRD), and the Pearl River delta (PRD). The results indicate that NH(3) emissions contribute to 8-11% of PM(2.5) concentrations in these three regions, comparable with the contributions of SO(2) (9-11%) and NO(x) (5-11%) emissions. However, NH(3), SO(2), and NO(x) emissions present significant nonlinear impacts; the PM(2.5) responses to their emissions increase when more control efforts are taken mainly because of the transition between NH(3)-rich and NH(3)-poor conditions. Nitrate aerosol (NO(3)(-)) concentration is more sensitive to NO(x) emissions in NCP and YRD because of the abundant NH(3) emissions in the two regions, but it is equally or even more sensitive to NH(3) emissions in the PRD. In high NO(3)(-) pollution areas such as NCP and YRD, NH(3) is sufficiently abundant to neutralize extra nitric acid produced by an additional 25% of NO(x) emissions. The 90% increase of NH(3) emissions during 1990-2005 resulted in about 50-60% increases of NO(3)(-) and SO(4)(2-) aerosol concentrations. If no control measures are taken for NH(3) emissions, NO(3)(-) will be further enhanced in the future. Control of NH(3) emissions in winter, spring, and fall will benefit PM(2.5) reduction for most regions. However, to improve regional air quality and avoid exacerbating the acidity of aerosols, a more effective pathway is to adopt a multipollutant strategy to control NH(3) emissions in parallel with current SO(2) and NO(x) controls in China.