One decade of VOCs measurements in São Paulo megacity: Composition, variability, and emission evaluation in a biofuel usage context

Pamela Dominutti; Thiago Nogueira; Adalgiza Fornaro; Agnès Borbon

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139790

One decade of VOCs measurements in São Paulo megacity: Composition, variability, and emission evaluation in a biofuel usage context

Sci Total Environ. 2020 Oct 10:738:139790. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139790. Epub 2020 Jun 1.

Authors

Pamela Dominutti¹, Thiago Nogueira², Adalgiza Fornaro³, Agnès Borbon⁴

Affiliations

¹ Departamento de Ciências Atmosféricas, Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas, Universidade de São Paulo (IAG-USP), São Paulo, Brazil; Wolfson Atmospheric Chemistry Laboratories, Department of Chemistry, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK; Laboratoire de Météorologie Physique, LaMP-UMR 6016, CNRS, Université Clermont Auvergne, 63178 Aubière, France. Electronic address: pamela.dominutti@uca.fr.
² Departamento de Ciências Atmosféricas, Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas, Universidade de São Paulo (IAG-USP), São Paulo, Brazil; Departamento de Saúde Ambiental, Faculdade de Saúde Pública, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
³ Departamento de Ciências Atmosféricas, Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas, Universidade de São Paulo (IAG-USP), São Paulo, Brazil.
⁴ Laboratoire de Météorologie Physique, LaMP-UMR 6016, CNRS, Université Clermont Auvergne, 63178 Aubière, France.

PMID: 32559485
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139790

Abstract

In South America, the observations of atmospheric pollutants are deficient, and few cities have implemented air quality monitoring programs. In addition, Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) observations are still missing, and little is known about their contributions to the atmospheric composition and impacts in a large ethanol usage context like Brazil. Here, we present a wide range of VOCs that have been measured for ten years in São Paulo Megacity (SPM) in different campaigns at traffic, urban and background sites. When compared with other cities worldwide, the average VOCs ambient concentrations in SPM were higher by factors of 2 to 10. However, the ambient VOCs distribution among these cities is homogeneous even for ethanol, aldehydes and alkenes species. Emission ratios (ER) were established related to carbon monoxide and acetylene, which did not depict strong seasonal and interannual variability in SPM. When compared with previous studies, ERs showed an enrichment from road-tunnel to background, suggesting the presence of other sources than traffic. A good agreement in ER was found with Los Angeles and Paris; but limited consistencies with Middle East and Asia cities. Our ethanol measurements show that contrasted ER can be obtained depending on the emission process involved, with a strong impact of evaporation on ethanol concentrations. The multiyear acetaldehyde analysis displayed that ER could be a valuable metric to assess the long-term changes in emissions sources. Finally, VOCs emissions were calculated from ER and compared with those estimated by the global emission inventory (Edgar). The total VOC emissions estimated by the global inventory agree very well with those from our observations up to 75%. Nevertheless, the VOCs speciation is misrepresented in the inventory, mainly for oxygenated and heavier alkanes compounds. These inconsistencies will also have an impact on the quantification of secondary atmospheric pollutants formation associated to road transport emissions.

Keywords: Emission inventory; Emission ratios; Ethanol; Megacities; South America; VOCs.