The CEAIS is the first database for iron- and steelmaking facilities that uses national Continuous Emission Monitoring Systems (CEMS) data (the actual systematic, source-level and real-time emission measurements) to estimate nationwide, detailed and dynamic emission factors (that is, emission intensities) and total emissions of PM, SO2, and NOX. The CEAIS addresses the limitations of existing database from the following three perspectives. First, because the CEMS network targets stack concentrations of different air pollutants (also the targets of the strengthened emission standards and ULE standards), which allows us to determine the compliance behaviors of Chinese iron- and steelmaking facilities and the associated impacts. Second, the use of actual measurements allows for a direct estimation for iron- and steelmaking emissions without using many assumptions and indirect parameters in previous estimations but with accounting for changes in fuel composition, operations and maintenance, technology detail and technology upgrades that can affect actual emissions, which largely reduces the uncertainty on estimates. Third, the real-time (hourly) measurements by CEMS present dynamics of the polluting behaviors of Chinese iron- and steelmaking facilities and the compliance behaviors with the strengthened emission standards over time.
Reference: Xin Bo, Min Jia, Xiaoda Xue, Ling Tang*, Zhifu Mi*, Shouyang Wang*, Weigeng Cui, Xiangyu Chang, Jianhui Ruan, Guangxia Dong, Beihai Zhou and Steven J. Davis. Effect of strengthened standards on Chinese ironmaking and steelmaking emissions [J]. Nature Sustainability, 2021 (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00736-0).