Household chemicals now rival cars for US VOCs
A 2016 inventory finds volatile chemical products emit as much regulated VOC as all US mobile sources, with substantial IVOC/SOA potential.
Source
Reactive organic carbon emissions from volatile chemical products
Study at a glance
- Design
- Computational / modelling — VCPy national inventory of volatile chemical product emissions with Monte Carlo uncertainty
- N
- US 2016 county-allocated inventory; 95% CI 2.61–3.53 Tg; Los Angeles emission-ratio evaluation
- Population
- United States volatile chemical product use in 2016
- Outcome
- VCPs emit as much regulated VOC as all US mobile sources, with substantial IVOC and SOA potential
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Inspect source passages
Household chemicals now rival cars for US VOCs
These passages occur verbatim in the stored paper text. They support the points listed below; they do not verify every statement in the explanation.
National per capita VCP organic emissions are 9.5 kg per person per year in 2016.
National per capita organic emissions from VCPs are 9.5 kg per person per year (6.4 kg C per person per year) for 2016, which translates to 3.05 Tg (2.06 Tg C) for the U.S.
Regulated VCP VOC totals 2.6 Tg, equal to all mobile sources nationally.
When filtered to remove regulatory exempt organics, total emissions from VCPs are 2.6 Tg of VOC and equal in magnitude to the sum of all mobile sources nationally, thus highlighting the growing importance of the VCP sector.
What they did
Authors built VCPy, mapping product-use categories, composition, evaporation vs use timescales, and controls, then allocated national 2016 emissions to counties and tested them with Monte Carlo uncertainty and Los Angeles emission-ratio evaluation.
What they found
US VCP organics are 3.05 Tg (9.5 kg per person per year). After dropping regulatory-exempt compounds, 2.6 Tg VOC equals all mobile sources. About 20% of organics are IVOCs; effective SOA yield is 5.3% and ozone MIR 1.58 gO3 g−1. Usage and composition, not fate/transport, dominate uncertainty (95% CI 2.61–3.53 Tg).
The limits
What it doesn't show
This is an inventory, not a chemistry-transport simulation of ozone or SOA. Indoor loss, time evolution, and some industrial controls are simplified, and Los Angeles skill may not generalize everywhere.
Key terms
- VCP
- Volatile chemical products: paints, cleaners, personal-care products, coatings, and related solvents.
- ROC
- Reactive organic carbon: non-methane organic gases plus organic aerosol.
- IVOC
- Intermediate-volatility organic compounds, important SOA precursors.
- VCPy
- Framework estimating VCP emissions from use, composition, and evaporation timescales.
- MIR
- Maximum incremental reactivity: ozone formed per mass of organic emitted.
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Quiz yourself
After dropping exempt organics, 2016 US VCP VOC is:
Common questions
Why do VCPs matter now?
Vehicle VOC controls dropped mobile emissions, so solvents/products are now comparable nationally.
What product types dominate?
Paints and coatings, personal-care products, and cleaning products.
What drives inventory uncertainty?
How much product is used and what is in it, not evaporation physics.
How did LA evaluation look?
Normalized mean bias −13% and r = 0.95, better than the 2017 NEI VCP sector.
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