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
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.
Flashcards
Research intelligence for this paper
See its role on concept claims, tensions it is part of, placement history, and related discoveries.
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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