ACP Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ACP 1680-7324 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acp-8-4983-2008 Source characteristics of volatile organic compounds during high ozone episodes in Hong Kong, Southern China Zhang J. 1 2 Wang T. 4 Chameides W. L. 2 3 Cardelino C. 2 Blake D. R. 5 Streets D. G. 6 School of Geography, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA now at: Nicholas School, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China Department of Chemistry, University of California, Irvine, California, USA Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois, USA 28 08 2008 8 16 4983 4996 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/8/4983/2008/acp-8-4983-2008.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/8/4983/2008/acp-8-4983-2008.pdf

Measurements of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) are analyzed to characterize the sources impacting the Hong Kong area. The ratios of different VOC species, m,p-xylenes-to-ethylbenzene, C<sub>6</sub>H<sub>14</sub>-to-toluene and p-xylene-to-total xylenes are used for diagnostic analyses. Photochemical age analysis shows that the sources of reactive aromatics, the most important contributor to the photochemical reactivity, do not appear to be preferentially located in downtown Hong Kong. In addition, they do not appear to be dominated by mobile emissions based on the analyses of speciated VOC data from an earlier study, but related to industrial, waterfront, and fuel-storage activities. The ratios, p-xylene-to-total xylenes and dSO<sub>2</sub>/dNO<sub>y</sub>, suggest that the anomalously high pollutant concentrations in western Hong Kong in the early morning hours of two episode days appear to have come from transport of urban-type emissions. Comparison of observed ambient ratios of selected VOC and their ratios in the speciated VOC emission inventories for Hong Kong and adjacent Pearl River Delta (PRD) Region gives mixed results. The observed ratio C<sub>6</sub>H<sub>14</sub>-to-toluene is consistent with the speciated version of the VOC emission inventory. The ratios of selected alkanes are not. This may be caused by the inaccuracies in the inventory and/or the speciation method.

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