Thousands of factories around the world daily pollute the air of the planet with harmful substances that shorten the lifespan of people. It is believed that this problem is especially urgent in China, which is why in 2013 the country's authorities decided to immediately cleanse the air of harmful particles. In just four years, they managed to achieve the results that the United States has achieved for 30 years. The speed is impressive, but this approach has a side effect: an element that is no less harmful to organisms, ozone, appeared in the air.
Work on the elimination of harmful particles less than 2.5 microns in size was carried out from 2013 to 2017. During this short period, the concentration of elements hazardous to human health has decreased by almost 40%. Unfortunately, with a decrease in their number, the concentration of another substance destructive to living organisms - ozone - has sharply increased in the air. Researchers from Harvard and China Universities reported this after examining data from thousands of air quality monitoring stations. The most hazardous air to health was found in Beijing and China.
Chemist Daniel Jacob explained that the increase in ozone levels is directly related to the reduction of those very harmful microparticles. It turned out that they were good at preventing the formation of ozone by absorbing hydroperoxide radicals involved in its formation. It is noteworthy that scientists have not previously observed such an effect, since no country has taken such rapid steps to reduce the number of harmful microparticles.
Scientists are confident that China is heading in the right direction, but now the country has a new challenge - to slow down the formation of ozone. To do this, authorities need to develop new air pollution control measures and reduce emissions of volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides. It is expected that this can be achieved by reducing the amount of fuel burned - the ozone-forming chemical reactions in the air will stop and the air will become cleaner.
Ramis Ganiev
