Evaluation of aromatic oxidation reactions in seven chemical mechanisms with an outdoor chamber

Abstract

Environmental context Regulatory air quality models used to develop strategies to reduce ozone and other pollutants must be able to accurately predict ozone produced from aromatic hydrocarbons. In urban areas, major sources of aromatic hydrocarbons are gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles. Our findings show that the representation of aromatic hydrocarbon chemistry in air quality models is an area of high uncertainty Abstract Simulations using seven chemical mechanisms are intercompared against O3, NOx and hydrocarbon data from photooxidation experiments conducted at the University of North Carolina outdoor smog chamber. The mechanisms include CB4–2002, CB05, CB05-TU, a CB05 variant with semi-explicit aromatic chemistry (CB05RMK), SAPRC07, CS07 and MCMv3.1. The experiments include aromatics, unsaturated dicarbonyls and volatile organic compound (VOC) mixtures representing a wide range of urban environments with relevant hydrocarbon species. In chamber simulations the sunlight is characterised using new solar radiation modelling software. A new heterogeneous chamber wall mechanism is also presented with revised chamber wall chemical processes. Simulations from all mechanisms, except MCMv3.1, show median peak O3 concentration relative errors of less than 25% for both aromatic and VOC mixture experiments. Although MCMv3.1 largely overpredicts peak O3 levels, it performs relatively better in predicting the peak NO2 concentration. For aromatic experiments, all mechanisms except CB4–2002, largely underpredict the NO–NO2 crossover time and over-predict both the absolute NO degradation slope and the slope of NO2 concentration rise. This suggests a major problem of a faster and earlier NO to NO2 oxidation rate across all the newer mechanisms. Results from individual aromatic and unsaturated dicarbonyl experiments illustrate the unique photooxidation chemistry and O3 production of several aromatic ring-opening products. The representation of these products as a single mechanism species in CB4–2002, CB05 and CB05-TU is not adequate to capture the O3 temporal profile. In summary, future updates to chemical mechanisms should focus on the chemistry of aromatic ring-opening products.