Unintended side effect of the coal-to-gas policy in North China Plain: Migration of the sources and health risks of ambient PAHs

Ongoing coal-to-gas (CTG) largely cut down both coal consumption and associated PM2.5. However, a knowledge gap still existed in CTG impacts on the other energy and organic pollutant emissions. Coupling on-site investigation with statistical yearbooks, we provided a more realistic energy evolutions before (BCTG), during (DCTG), and after (ACTG) the CTG for Hebei Province. Together, we examined the impacts of CTG derived energy conversion on PM2.5-bound PAHs at urban (UA)/suburban rural (SRA)/remote rural (RRA) sites in winter 2022. As expected, the consumptions of coal and natural gas (NG) far decreased and increased from BCTG to ACTG, respectively. Accidentally, biomass usage rose by 60.7%, and rural CTG acted as a main driver. Specially, SRA's NG-shortage and coal-stove demolition should be the main inducements, and RRA's coal-sale ban was another trigger in the early stage of CTG. ∑18PAHs and ∑8TPAHs stand for the sum of 18 PAHs and 8 toxic PAHs, respectively. ∑18PAHs (ng/m3) presented as SRA (81.8) > RRA (46.4) > UA (19.4). Biomass burning (BB) and NG combustion (NGC) contributed most to∑18PAHs of 31.0% and 23.1% at SRA, resulting in the highest ∑18PAHs, ∑18PAHs/PM2.5, and ∑8TPAHs/PM2.5, and incremental lifetime cancer risk values. Also, NGC has become the second largest contributor at UA. Variations in both diagnostic ratios and source-depend isomers further proved the prominence of NGC related PAHs at UA vs. SRA. Notably, RRA was least affected by the CTG, coal combustion (CC, 40.4%) and BB (32.6%) still occupied the top positions. In short, CTG gave rise to an upsurge in biomass usage, and the incremental PAHs emissions from BB vs. NGC. This study underlined that the priorities should be given to rural NG guarantee and subsidy retention, and biomass prohibition for further air quality improvement. © 2024 Elsevier B.V.