Temporal and spatial variations in atmospheric unintentional PCB emissions in Chinese mainland from 1960 to 2019

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are nowadays mainly unintentionally produced, since their use and manufacture has been banned. PCBs, especially those dioxin-like compounds, have been proven harmful to ecosystems and human health. Detailed information about the spatiotemporally distribution of unintentionally produced PCBs (UP-PCBs) is crucial for understanding the environmental fate and associated health risks. However, research estimating UP-PCBs emission in China is limited. In this study, a source-specific and year-varying emission factor (EF) dataset was used to compile provincial emissions of 12 dioxin-like UP-PCBs congeners for 66 sources in the Chinese mainland from 1960 to 2019. In addition to that, emissions for 2019 were allocated into 0.1g0.1. The results indicated that historical national UP-PCBs emission represented an increasing trend until around 1995 and then showed an overall decreasing trend from 1995 to 2019. Cement production was the largest UP-PCBs emission source in the Chinese mainland. Geographically, East and North China contributed the largest UP-PCBs emission across the Chinese mainland. High emission densities occurred mainly in the densely populated and well-developed regions such as Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration and Pearl River Delta. Furthermore, highly positive correlations of emission densities with population and GDP densities were identified.