Increases in global and East Asian nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) emissions inferred from atmospheric observations and GEOS-Chem

Abstract

Nitrogen trifluoride (NF₃) is a potent and long-lived greenhouse gas that is widely used in the manufacture of semiconductors, photovoltaic cells, and flat panel displays. Using atmospheric observations from eight monitoring stations from the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE) and Bayesian method combining with a global 3-D atmospheric chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem), we quantify global and regional NF₃ emission from 2015 to 2021. We find that global emissions have grown from 1.93± 0.58 Gg yr^-1 ( one standard deviation) in 2015 to 3.38 ± 0.61 Gg yr^-1 in 2021, with an average annual increase of 10% yr^-1. The available observations allow us to attribute significant emissions to China (0.93 ± 0.15 Gg yr^-1 in 2015 and 1.53 ± 0.20 Gg yr^-1 in 2021) and South Korea (0.38 ± 0.07 Gg yr^-1 to 0.65 ± 0.10 Gg yr^-1). East Asia contributes around 73% of the global NF₃ emission increase from 2015 to 2021: approximately 41% of the increase is from emissions from China (with Taiwan included), 19% from South Korea, and 13% from Japan. For Japan, which is the only one of these three countries to submit annual NF₃ emissions to UNFCCC, our bottom-up and top-down estimates are higher than reported. With increasing demand for electronics, especially flat panel displays, emissions are expected to further increase in the future.
 

Plain-language Summary

NF₃, emitted mainly from the semiconductor industries, is one of the long-lived greenhouse gases, with an extremely high global warming potential. In this study, we estimate global and regional NF₃ emissions over 2015–2021, using an inverse method, measurements and atmospheric model. Our results reveal East Asian emissions in the global budgets of dominant role in the global budgets of NF₃. Our global estimations match other results inferred from atmospheric measurements. Our estimates from both atmospheric measurements and industrial data are higher than reported by Japanese government.