• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.1-9
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• 2022

This study analyzed the anticipated supply-and-demand of forest biomass energy (through wood pellets) until 2050, in South Korea. Comparing the utilization rates of forest resources of five countries (United Kingdom, Germany, Finland, Japan, and S. Korea), it was found that S. Korea does not nearly utilize its forest resources for energy purposes. The total demand for wood pellets in S. Korea (based on a power generation efficiency of 38%) was predicted to be 3,629 and 4,371 thousand tons in 2034 and 2050, respectively. The anticipated total wood pellet power generation ratio to target power consumption is 1.13% (5,745 GWh), 1.17% (6,336 GWh), and 1.25% (7,631 GWh) in 2020, 2030, and 2050, respectively. Low value-added forest residues left unattended in forests are called "Unused Forest Biomass" in S. Korea. From the analysis, the total annual potential amount of raw material, sustainably collectible amount, and available amount of wood pellet in 2050 were estimated to be 6,877, 4,814, and 3,370 thousand tons, respectively. The rate of contribution to Nationally Determined Contributions was up to 0.64%. Through this study, the authors found that forest biomass energy will contribute to a carbon neutral society in the near future at the national level.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.122-134
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• 2015

This study was conducted to investigate the potential of torrefied larch wood as a raw material of pellets. First of all, larch chip was torrefied at the temperatures of 230, 250 and $270^{\circ}C$ for 30, 50 and 70 min. Secondly, moisture content, moisture absorption, higher heating value and ash content of the torrefied chip were measured to examine the effects of torrefaction conditions on the fuel characteristics of larch. Thirdly, surfaces of the torrefied chip were observed by light microscope (LM), field emission scanning microscope (FE-SEM) and SEM-energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDXS). With the increases of torrefied temperature and time, contents of lignin increased and those of hemicellulose reduced. Moisture content of torrefied larch chip was greatly lower than that of non-torrefied chip. Moisture absorption of the torrefied chip decreased as torrefaction temperature increased. As torrefaction temperature increased, higher heating value and ash content of larch chip increased. However, durability of torrefied-larch pellets was remarkably lower comparing to non-torrefied-larch pellets. When surface of larch chip was observed by LM and FE-SEM, surface color and cell wall of the chip was getting darker and more collapsed with the increases of torrefaction conditions. Through the analysis of SEM-EDXS, distribution and quantity of lignin existing on the surface of larch chip increased with the increases of torrefied conditions. In conclusion, $270^{\circ}C$/50 min might be an optimal condition for the torrefaction of larch with the aspect of fuel characteristics, but torrefaction condition of $230^{\circ}C$/30 min should be considered according to the durability of torrefied-larch pellets.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.67-76
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• 2022

The furniture industry has a high possibility to create value-added and a high potential to create new occupations due to the characteristics of the industry, which mainly consists of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, the used furniture, which has sufficient reuse value, is also crushed and used as solid refuse fuel (SRF) recently. Besides, the number of waste treatment companies continues to decrease, and it occurs congestion of wood waste. As a way to solve the issue, a business model development of remanufacturing used furniture can be suggested as an alternative due to its high circular economic efficiency. Remanufacturing business including furniture industry creates positive effects in various aspects such as economic, environmental and job creation. In other words, remanufacturing is an effective recycling way to reduce input resources and energy in the production process. The results of economic analysis show that the expected annual revenue from the single worker furniture remanufacturing site was 104 million won which is 3.11 times more than the average income of a single-worker household in Korea and its B/C ratio was estimated about 30 which means high business feasibility. Revenue through furniture remanufacturing also showed 320 times higher than that of SRF production from the perspective of weight. In addition, it is shown that the GHGs reduction from the furniture remanufacturing is 2.2 ton CO₂-eq. per year, which is similar to the amount of GHGs absorption effect of 937 pine trees or 622 Korean oak trees annually. Thus the results of this study demonstrate that it is important to adopt an appropriate recycling method considering the economic and environmental effects at the end-of-life stage.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.1-10
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to analyze the change of environmental capacity in Yong-in City, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea through calculation of ecological footprint indices and analysis of their changes, and to suggest implications for urban development and planning. In this study, we analyzed ecological footprints of 1993, 2003, and 2013 to understand the patterns of land use changes and development in Yong-in City. We also compared the GIS land cover maps and ecological footprint indices to figure out land cover changes associated with resource consumption in Yong-in City. As a result, we found the following three lessons. First, the ecological footprint indices of Yong-in City are 3.20(gha) in 1993, 6.50(gha) in 2003, and 11.15(gha) in 2013. This implies that the ecological footprint of Yong-in City is much larger than 1.80(gha), the globally required ecological footprint per capita and 3.56(gha), the average ecological footprint of South Korea. Second, the forest ecological footprint of Yong-in City was calculated as the largest, followed by the ecological footprints of energy, food, and built environment. In particular, the forest ecological footprint was the most rapidly increased from 0.002(gha) in 1993 to 7.32(gha) in 2013, followed by energy ecological footprint from 0.87(gha) to 2.38(gha). This implies that the provision and consumption of timber are seriously unbalanced, and energy consumption is unsustainable because of the rapid increase of residential and commercial land development in the city. Third, our analysis of the rapid increase of forest ecological footprint indicates that the disturbed forest areas are concentrated in the increased built environment areas. We also observed that the increase of energy ecological footprint indices was caused largely by the increase of the commercial and road areas. This implies that Yong-in City should minimize forest disturbance and expand green areas for future in the city. In addition, this may provide a reasonable ground that the city should reduce the use of fossil fuels and facilitate the use of renewable energy.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.271-282
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• 2020

Sewage treatment plants are social infrastructure of cities. The sewage distribution rate in Korea is reaching 94% based on the sewage statistics based in the year of 2017. In Korean sewage treatment plants, use of PAC (Poly Aluminum Chloride) accounts for 58%. It contains a large amount of impurities (heavy metal) according to the quality standards, however, there have been insufficient efforts to reinforce the standards or technically improve the quality, which resulted in secondary pollution problems from injecting excessive coagulant. Also, the increase in the use of chemicals is leading to the increases in the annual amount of sewage sludge generated in 2017 and the need to reuse sludge. As such, this study aims to verify the possibility of reusing sludge by evaluating the stability of heavy metals based on the injection of coagulant mixture during water treatment which uses the torrefield wood powder and natural materials, and evaluating the sedimentation and heating value of sewage sludge. As a result of analyzing heavy metals (Cr, Fe, Zn, Cu, Cd, As, Pb, and Ni) from the coagulant mixture and PAC (10%), Cr, Cd, Pb, Ni, and Hg were not detected. As for Zn, while its concentration notified in the quality standards for drinking water is 3 mg/L, only a small amount of 0.007 mg/L was detected in the coagulant mixture. Maximum amounts of over double amounts of Fe, Cu, and As were found with PAC (10%) compared to the coagulant mixture. Also, an analysis of sludge sedimentation found that the coagulant mixture showed a better performance of up to double the speed of the conventional coagulant, PAC (10%). The dry-basis lower heating value of sewage sludge produced by injecting the coagulant mixture was 3,378 kcal/kg, while that of sewage sludge generated due to PAC (10%) was 3,171 kcal/kg; although both coagulants met the requirements to be used as auxiliary fuel at thermal power plants, the coagulant mixture developed in this study could secure heating values 200 kal/kg higher than the counterpart. Therefore, utilization of the coagulant mixture for water treatment rather than PAC (10%) is expected to be more environmentally stable and effective, as it helps generating sludge with better stability against heavy metals, having a faster sludge sedimentation, and higher heating value.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.96 no.4
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• pp.477-482
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• 2007

Forest biomass became a topic because we have growing interest in global environmental issues and environment-friendly energy resources. This study was carried out to estimate the forest biomass and develop a program for biomass information management in Korea. The total forest biomass (million ton) were 521 for gross forest, 403 for productive forest and 201 for commercial forest in 2005. Also, the annual biomass production in forest was 20 million ton which was equivalent to 94,290 Gkcal of heating value and about 9 billion won of paraffin oil. The biomass growing rate (every 10year) increased from 4.95% in 1985 to 5.30% in 1995 but turn down 4.46% in 2005. The factors that the forest stock could be converted to the forest biomass have developed according to forest type. Therefore, it is impossible to estimate the exact biomass by tree species. In this reason, the demands of the development of the factors by tree species was raised. In addition, it is on time to develop an equation for estimation of biomass by species using dbh and height as independent factors.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.561-567
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• 2013

Mixed hardwood chips were pre-pulping extracted with green liquor prior to kraft pulping in order to recover hemicelluloses for use as biofuels. This green liquor solution containing mainly sodium sulfide and sodium carbonate was applied at different alkali charges (expressed as $Na_2O$) of 0, 1, 3, and 5% on dry wood weight. The extractions were performed at $160^{\circ}C$ for residence times ranging from about 1-2 h to determine the effect of extraction severity on composition of the pre-pulping extract. The severity of hemicellulose extraction time and green liquor charge controls the concentration of acetic acid and monosaccharide sugars available for downstream processing, the accumulation of degradation products such as organic acids and furans in the extract. As the alkali charge was increased, the amount of acetate side chains on the hemicelluloses and the dissolved lignin in the extract increased but the carbohydrate and sugars in the extract decreased appreciably. Hot water extraction (0% alkali addition) released the greatest amount of carbohydrates, up to 29.80 g/L measured as component sugars, but resulted in the greatest decrease in pulp yield. Meanwhile, pre-pulping extraction with 3% green liquor increased the pulp yield while greatly reducing the component sugars to 7.08 g/L. Fundamental data obtained in this study will allow selection of optimum hemicellulose extraction conditions for integrating the extraction operation into the Kraft pulping process.