In collaboration with partners, Prof. Tao Wang’s research team measured a suite of reactive halogen gases and other chemicals in winter 2017 in northern China which frequently suffers from severe air pollution in winter. Strong evidence was found that rural coal burning was a major source of the detected reactive halogens. The highly reactive halogen can boost formation of haze.
They call for more research to better understand the source(s) and the spatial extent of the role of the halogen chemistry in the polluted continental regions. They also suggest need to control halogens from coal-burning, in addition to well recognized CO2, sulfur, nitrogen, particulate, and mercury.
Their work was published at National Science Review and reported by Science China Press at EurekAlert!, ScienMag, and Phys.org. More details can be found at https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-01/scp-rhf012521.php.