Emissions of Tetrafluoromethane (CF4) and Hexafluoroethane (C2F6) from East Asian Aluminum and Semiconductor Industries
Abstract
Tetrafluoromethane (CF4) and Hexafluoroethane (C2F6) are among the most potent greenhouse gases (GHGs), with atmospheric lifetimes of 50,000 and 10,000 years and 100-year Global Warming Potentials of 7,490 and 12,200, respectively. The Chinese aluminum smelting (AL) industry, accounting for 39% of the global aluminum production in 2010, has become a significant emitter of these compounds to the atmosphere, . The AL industry has estimated its Chinese emissions averaged over 2008-2010 at 1.4 Gg/yr of CF4 and 0.06 Gg/yr of C2F6. In this study we combine East Asian measurements of C2F6 at Gosan (Jeju Island, Korea), Hateruma, and Ochi-Ishi (Japan) and of CF4 at Gosan, using inversion techniques and two Lagrangian particle dispersion models (FLEXPART and NAME), to estimate the emissions of these two compounds from China and East Asia. Our results yield total emissions from China for the 2008-2010 period of approximately 4 × 0.5 Gg/yr for CF4 and 0.8 × 0.1 Gg/yr for C2F6. These results may be reconciled if emissions of these compounds from China's semiconductor (SC) industry are larger than currently estimated. However, evidence presented in the analysis of the inversion results and in the C2F6/CF4 emission ratios observed for China suggest that China's AL industry emissions are likely to be the dominant source of the discrepancy between reported emissions and those inferred from atmospheric measurements. As the AL and SC industries evolve toward new manufacturing technologies that reduce GHG emissions, continued and improved atmospheric measurements and modeling in this region will be useful in assessing the effectiveness of these changes.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2013
- Bibcode:
- 2013AGUFM.A32D..01K
- Keywords:
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- 0345 ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE Pollution: urban and regional;
- 0365 ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE Troposphere: composition and chemistry