Numerical study on the impacts of heterogeneous reactions on ozone formation in the Beijing urban area

The air quality model CMAQ-MADRID (Community Multiscale Air Quality-Model of Aerosol Dynamics, Reaction, Ionization and Dissolution) was employed to simulate summer O3 formation in Beijing China, in order to explore the impacts of four heterogeneous reactions on O3 formation in an urban area. The results showed that the impacts were obvious and exhibited the characteristics of a typical response of a VOC-limited regime in the urban area. For the four heterogeneous reactions considered, the NO2 and HO2 heterogeneous reactions have the most severe impacts on O3 formation. During the O3 formation period, the NO2 heterogeneous reaction increased new radical creation by 30%, raising the atmospheric activity as more NO→NO2 conversion occurred, thus causing the O3 to rise. The increase of O3 peak concentration reached a maximum value of 67 ppb in the urban area. In the morning hours, high NO titration reduced the effect of the photolysis of HONO, which was produced heterogeneously at night in the surface layer. The NO2 heterogeneous reaction in the daytime is likely one of the major reasons causing the O3 increase in the Beijing urban area. The HO2 heterogeneous reaction accelerated radical termination, resulting in a decrease of the radical concentration by 44% at the most. O3 peak concentration decreased by a maximum amount of 24 ppb in the urban area. The simulation results were improved when the heterogeneous reactions were included, with the O3 and HONO model results close to the observations.