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Fireworks are banned in many Chinese cities but never eliminated, reflecting strong public demand on this traditional activity for festival celebrations. On the other hand, the assessment of firework contributions to air pollution remains vague, raising concerns on the necessity of the mandatory bans. Here we investigated the characteristics of firework episodes in a megacity in Northeast China, based on field campaigns conducted in four successive winters during 2018–2022. Although prohibited, the firework influences remained evident during the Chinese New Year periods, as suggested by the enhancements of water-soluble potassium (K+). In addition, significant annual variations were identified for the firework episodes, with the following features observed. First, the firework-induced enrichment ratios of K+ and chloride exhibited increasing trends across years, climbing from 4.4 to 8.6 and from 1.7 to 2.9, respectively. Second, the enrichment ratio of sulfate dropped from 2.8 to 1.6, indicating that the firework contributions to sulfate decreased but remained considerable. Third, fireworks turned into an unimportant source for organic carbon and nitrate in the most recent winter of 2021–2022, with enrichment ratios of ∼1 for both species. Fourth, the firework-driven increases in fine particle concentration were as high as ∼100% for the two winters during 2019–2021, whereas the increase dropped sharply to ∼30% for 2021–2022. These variations were in line with the promotion of environmentally friendly fireworks. Our results indicated that the air pollution caused by fireworks could be reduced substantially by advanced manufacturing technologies and thus it is time to rethink the firework bans. [Display omitted] • Firework-emitted aerosols changed dramatically during recent years in Harbin. • Firework-induced enrichments in K+ and Cl− increased across years. • Firework contributions to organic matter and nitrate became negligible in 2022. • The relative importance of fireworks compared to other PM 2.5 sources decreased. • Green fireworks provide solution to balance air quality concerns and public demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Baoji is a typical heavy industrial city in northwest China. Its air quality is greatly impacted by the emission from the factories. Elements in fine particulate matter (PM2.5) that are greatly emitted from anthropogenic sources could pose diverse health impacts on humans. In this study, an online AMMS-100 atmospheric heavy metal analyzer was used to quantify 30 elements in PM2.5 under the weak and strong anthropogenic disturbance scenarios before the city lockdown period (from January 9th to 23rd) and the lockdown period (from January 26th to February 9th) due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020. During the lockdown period, the average total concentration of total quantified elements was 3475.0 ng/m3, which was 28% and 33% lower than that of the week and strong anthropogenic disturbance scenarios during the pre-lockdown period. The greatest reductions were found for the elements of chromium (Cr), titanium (Ti), manganese (Mn), and Zinc (Zn), consistent with the industrial structure of Baoji. The mass concentrations of most elements showed obvious reductions when the government post-alerted the industries to reduce the operations and production. Dust, traffic sources, combustion, non-ferrous metal processing, and Ti-related industrial processing that are the contributors of the elements in the pre-lockdown period were apportioned by the positive matrix factorization (PMF) model. Substantial changes in the quantified elements' compositions and sources were found in the lockdown period. Health assessment was conducted and characterized by apportioned sources. The highest non-carcinogenic risk (HQ) was seen for Zn, demonstrating the high emissions from the related industrial activities. The concentration level of arsenic (As) exceeded the incremental lifetime carcinogenic risk (ILCR) in the lockdown period. This could be attributed to the traditional firework activities for the celebration of the Chinese New Year within the lockdown period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The environmental-friendly and safe unpacking powder without sulfur, magnesium and aluminum was proposed firstly. • The new unpacking powder releases lower PM2.5 and PM10 and is more environmental-friendly during the actual firing process. • The new unpacking powder is safer, and more stable in the process of preparation, transportation and storage. • The new unpacking powder has a good discharge performance. • The new unpacking powder has the potential to replace the ordinary unpacking powder and apply to export in the fireworks. A novel environmental-friendly unpacking powder for fireworks which has no sulfur, no magnesium, no aluminum or their alloys has been prepared in this study: potassium perchlorate (75%), potassium hydrogen terephthalate (13%), micronano porous silicon (9%), carbon (2%), ferrocene (1%). The PM2.5 and PM10 were collected by the ambient air particulate sampler, and the gas product was tested with a smoke analyzer and gas chromatograph to investigate its environmental-friendly performance. The detonation radius was measured by similar triangulation method, and p–t curves were measured in a closed bomb to investigate its practicality. The heat of combustion, sensitivity and hygroscopicity of the formula were measured according to China fireworks industry standard to verify the safety of the novel unpacking powder. The test results suggest that new unpacking powder using micronano porous silicon can effectively reduce the PM content and the product does not contain SO 2 , so it can be applied to export. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Baoji is a typical heavy industrial city in northwest China. Its air quality is greatly impacted by the emission from the factories. Elements in fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) that are greatly emitted from anthropogenic sources could pose diverse health impacts on humans. In this study, an online AMMS-100 atmospheric heavy metal analyzer was used to quantify 30 elements in PM 2.5 under the weak and strong anthropogenic disturbance scenarios before the city lockdown period (from January 9 th to 23 rd ) and the lockdown period (from January 26 th to February 9 th ) due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020. During the lockdown period, the average total concentration of total quantified elements was 3475.0 ng/m 3 , which was 28% and 33% lower than that of the week and strong anthropogenic disturbance scenarios during the pre-lockdown period. The greatest reductions were found for the elements of chromium (Cr), titanium (Ti), manganese (Mn), and Zinc (Zn), consistent with the industrial structure of Baoji. The mass concentrations of most elements showed obvious reductions when the government post-alerted the industries to reduce the operations and production. Dust, traffic sources, combustion, non-ferrous metal processing, and Ti-related industrial processing that are the contributors of the elements in the pre-lockdown period were apportioned by the positive matrix factorization (PMF) model. Substantial changes in the quantified elements' compositions and sources were found in the lockdown period. Health assessment was conducted and characterized by apportioned sources. The highest non-carcinogenic risk (HQ) was seen for Zn, demonstrating the high emissions from the related industrial activities. The concentration level of arsenic (As) exceeded the incremental lifetime carcinogenic risk (ILCR) in the lockdown period. This could be attributed to the traditional firework activities for the celebration of the Chinese New Year within the lockdown period., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Abstract: The effects of the burning of fireworks on air quality in Beijing was firstly assessed from the ambient concentrations of various air pollutants (SO2, NO2, PM2.5, PM10 and chemical components in the particles) during the lantern festival in 2006. Eighteen ions, 20 elements, and black carbon were measured in PM2.5 and PM10, and the levels of organic carbon could be well estimated from the concentrations of dicarboxylic acids. Primary components of Ba, K, Sr, Cl−, Pb, Mg and secondary components of C5H6O4 2−, C3H2O4 2−, C2O4 2−, C4H4O4 2−, SO4 2−, NO3 − were over five times higher in the lantern days than in the normal days. The firework particles were acidic and of inorganic matter mostly with less amounts of secondary components. Primary aerosols from the burning of fireworks were mainly in the fine mode, while secondary formation of acidic anions mainly took place on the coarse particles. Nitrate was mainly formed through homogeneous gas-phase reactions of NO2, while sulfate was largely from heterogeneous catalytic transformations of SO2. Fe could catalyze the formation of nitrate through the reaction of α-Fe2O3 with HNO3, while in the formation of sulfate, Fe is not only the catalyst, but also the oxidant. A simple method using the concentration of potassium and a modified method using the ratio of Mg/Al have been developed to quantify the source contribution of fireworks. It was found that over 90% of the total mineral aerosol and 98% of Pb, 43% of total carbon, 28% of Zn, 8% of NO3 −, and 3% of SO4 2− in PM2.5 were from the emissions of fireworks on the lantern night. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Nitrated phenols in particulate matters are among the major components of brown carbon, harm plant growth and human health. To understand the size distributions of nitrated phenols in the polluted coastal region and the factors influencing these distributions, size-resolved particulate matters were collected from a rural site in the coastal city of Qingdao, China, in January 2019, and analyzed for the presence of 11 nitrated phenols. The average concentrations of total nitrated phenols in fine- and coarse-mode particles were 123.6 and 37.2 ng m−3, respectively. 4-Nitrophenol was found to be the dominant nitrated phenol, followed by 3-methyl-6-nitrocatechol, 3-methyl-4-nitrophenol, and 4-nitrocatechol. On average, maximum concentrations of nitrated phenols were in condensation-mode particles, whereas a minor concentration peak of nitro-salicylic acids was present in droplet-mode particles. In addition, a minor concentration peak of 4-methyl-2,6-dinitrophenol was noticed in coarse-mode particles. Comparisons of the size distributions under different situations confirmed that both primary emissions and secondary formation had significant effects on the abundances and particle-sizes of nitrated phenols. Coal combustion in residential villages and firework burning during a festival led to a sharp increase of nitrated phenols in condensation-mode particles, whereas dust promoted their heterogeneous formation in coarse-mode particles, and high humidity in the coastal area facilitated their aqueous formation in droplet-mode particles. Image 1028 • Concentrations and size distributions of 11 nitrated phenols (NPs) were presented. • Primary sources and secondary formation had impacts on size distributions of NPs. • Coal combustion and fireworks promoted the increases of NPs in condensation mode. • Dust in the atmosphere caused the heterogeneous formation of NPs in coarse particles. • High humidity obviously facilitated the aqueous formation of NPs in droplet mode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]