• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.482-486
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• 2013

Recently, biohydrocarbons are gathering an interest as a new bioenergy due to the versatile applicability. In the present work, a process is proposed for the recovery of lipids from Recombinant E. coli MG1655 which provides longer chain fatty acids. After the growth of the recombinant E. coli, the cells were disrupted by high pressure homogenizer for obtaining intracellular lipids and the resulting solutions were centrifuged and extracted. For the efficient cell disruption with high pressure homogenizer, the pressure higher than 5,000 psi was required. In addition, under the conditions of applied pressure 5,000 to 20,000 psi, 1~3 pass homogenizing was enough for the more than 90% cell disruption. As organic solvents for extraction of lipid, hexane/isopropyl alcohol and ethyl acetate/ethanol systems showed excellent extracting power. With these solvent systems, the 60% lipid could be recovered. Moreover it was found that the extracted lipids contained long-chain fatty acids such as $C_{12}$, $C_{14}$, $C_{16}$ and $C_{18}$.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.88-94
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• 2021

The seaweed, Gracilaria verrucosa (red seaweed) was fermented to produce bioethanol. Optimal thermal acid hydrolysis conditions were determined as 200 mM H₂SO₄ and 10% (w/v) seaweed slurry at 130℃ for 60 min yielding 47.5% of pretreatment efficiency (E_p). After the thermal acid hydrolysis, enzymatic saccharification was carried out with 16 U/ml Viscozyme L, Cellic CTec2 or mixture of Viscozyme L and Cellic CTec2 to G. verrucosa hydrolysates. Enzymatic saccharifications with Viscozyme, Cellic CTec2 or mixture of those yielded 7.3 g/l glucose with efficiency of saccharification, E_s = 34.9%, 11.6 g/l glucose with E_s = 64.4% and the mixture of those 9.6 g/l glucose with E_s = 56.6%, respectively. Therefore, based on the E_s value, Cellic CTec2 was selected for the optimal enzyme for enzymatic saccharification of G. verrucosa hydrolysate. The ethanol productions with non-adapted S. cerevisiae CEN-PK2 (wild type) and S. cerevisiae CEN-PK2 with adaptive evolution to galactose produced 8.5 g/l ethanol with Y_EtOH = 0.19 and 21.5 g/l ethanol with Y_EtOH = 0.50 at 144 h, respectively. From these results, the ethanol production by S. cerevisiae with adaptive evolution showed high concentration of ethanol production using G. verrucosa as a substrate.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.404-411
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• 2023

For the direct reforming of biogas, a three-phase gliding arc plasma reformer was designed to expand the plasma discharge region, and the operation conditions of the plasma reformer, such as the S/C ratio, the gas flow rate, and the plasma input power, were optimized. The H₂ production efficiency is increased at a lower specific plasma input energy density, but byproducts such as C_XH_Y and carbon soot are generated along with the increase in H₂ production efficiency. The formation of byproducts is decreased at higher specific plasma input energy densities and S/C ratios. The optimized operation conditions are 5.5 ~ 6.0 kJ/L for the specific plasma input energy density and 3 for the S/C ratio, considering the conversion efficiency, H₂ production, and byproduct formation. It is expected that the H₂ production efficiency will improve with the decrease in fuel consumption in biogas burners because the heat generated from plasma discharge heats up the feed gas to over 500 ℃.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.33 no.7
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• pp.593-604
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• 2023

The ocean accounts for over 70% of the Earth's surface and is a space of largely unexplored unknowns and opportunities. Korea is a peninsula surrounded by the sea on three sides, emphasizing the importance of marine research. The ocean has an extremely complex environment with immense biological diversity. In terms of microbiology, the marine environment has varying factors like extreme temperature, pressure, solar radiation, salt concentration, and pH, providing ecologically unique habitats. Due to this variety, marine organisms have very different phylogenetic classifications compared with terrestrial organisms. Although various microorganisms inhabit the ocean, studies on the diversity, isolation, and cultivation of marine microorganisms and the secondary metabolites they produce are still insufficient. Research on bioactive substances from marine microorganisms, which were rarely studied until the 1990s, has accelerated in terms of natural products from marine Actinomycetes since the 2000s. Since then, industries for bioplastic and biofuel production, carbon dioxide capture, probiotics, and pharmaceutical discovery and development of antibacterial, anticancer, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory drugs using bacteria, archaea, and algae have significantly grown. In this review, we introduce current research findings and the latest trends in life science and biotechnology using marine microorganisms. Through this article, we hope to create consumer awareness of the importance of basic and applied research in various natural product-related discovery fields other than conventional pharmaceutical drug discovery. The article aims to suggest pathways that may boost research on the optimization and application of future marine-derived materials.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.683-693
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• 2017

Transport biofuels have been recognized as a promising means to resolve the following issues like global warming, oil depletion and environmental pollutions. Among various biofuels, biodiesel has several advantages such as less emission of air pollutants and higher cetane values compared to diesel oil. Demand for biodiesel in Korea is increasing that leads to higher dependence on the imported feedstocks. Therefore, it is important to utilize the waste materials collected domestically for biodiesel production. Food waste oil collected in waste treatment facility has not been used for biodiesel production due to high free fatty contents in the oil. In this work, biodiesel conversion of food waste oil by Amberlyst 15 was studied. Synthetic and actual food waste oils have been used in the study. First, the effects of the major operating parameters including reaction temperature, methanol to oil molar ratio and catalyst loading on the conversion rates and yields were determined with synthetic waste oil. Kinetic modelling work was also done to determine the activation energy of the reaction. From the work, optimization reaction conditions were determined to be 383K, 1: 26.1 for methanol molar ratio to oil, 10 wt.% for catalyst loading and 360 min for reaction time. Activation energy of the reaction is determined to be 29.75 kJ/mol, lower than those reported in the previous works. So the solid catalyst, Amberlyst 15, was more efficient for esterification than the solid catalysts employed in the other works. Agitation rates have the negligible effects on the conversion rates and yields. With the identified optimization conditions, conversion of the actual food waste oil was also carried out. The esterification yield of actual food waste oil in 60 min was 13% lower than that of synthetic waste oil but the final yields in 240 min were similar each other, 98.12% for synthetic oil and 97.62% for actual waste oil.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.627-633
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• 2016

Sweet sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L)] is one of the major crops for biofuels such as sugarcane and sugar beet which raw materials rich in saccharide. Sweet sorghum juice was extracted from the stem. It's composed of fermentable sugars such as glucose, fructose and sucrose. Ethanol from the extracted sweet sorghum juice can be easily produced by yeast fermentation process. Sweet sorghum juice is consisted of not only sugars but also various nutrients like nitrogen and phosphate. For commercial production of bioethanol, seed culture is one of the important parts of fermentation, so that optimal culture medium should be selected for the reduction of processing costs. In this study, sweet sorghum juice was estimated as a culture medium for seed culture of cellulosic bioethanol. For the comparison of cultures with various substrates, it used YPD including each 5 g/L yeast extract and peptone, sweet sorghum juice and hydrolyzed Miscanthus was taken part in the culture with 2%, 5% and 10% sugar conditions. Based on media of YPD and sweet sorghum juice, cell-mass concentration was obtained maximum more than $2.5{\times}10^8CFU/mL$ after 24 h of cultivation. Consequently sweet sorghum juice is suitable for the cell culture with more than $1.0{\times}10^8CFU/mL$ after 12 h of cultivation. This can be used as a culture medium for the cellulosic bioethanol industry.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.67-76
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• 2021

Biogasification is a technology that produces environmentally friendly fuel using methane gas generated in the process of stably decomposing and processing organic waste. Biogasification is the most used method for energy conversion of organic waste with high moisture content, and is a useful method for organic waste treatment following the prohibition of direct landfill (2005) and marine dumping (2013). Due to African Swine Fever (ASF), which recently occurred in Korea, recycling of wet feed is prohibited, and consumers such as dry feed and compost are negatively recognized, making it difficult to treat food waste. Accordingly, biogasification is attracting more attention for the treatment and recycling of food waste. Korea's energy consumption amounted to 268.41 106toe, ranking 9th in the world. However, it is an energy-poor country that depends on foreign imports for about 95.8% of its energy supply. Therefore, in Korea, the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (RPS) is being introduced. The domestic RPS system sets the weight of the new and renewable energy certificate (REC, Renewable energy certificate) of waste energy lower than that of other renewable energy. Therefore, an additional incentive system is required for the activation of waste-to-energy. In this study, the operation of an anaerobic digester that treats food waste, food waste Leachate and various organic wastes was confirmed. It was intended to be used as basic data for preparing the waste-to-energy incentive system through precise monitoring for a certain period of time. Four sites that produce biogas from organic waste and use them for power generation and heavy gas were selected as target facilities, and field surveys and sampling were conducted. Basic properties analysis was performed on the influent sample of organic waste and the effluent sample according to the treatment process. As a result of the analysis of the properties, the total solids of the digester influent was an average of 12.11%, and the volatile solids of the total solids were confirmed to be 85.86%. BOD and CODcr removal rates were 60.8% and 64.8%. The volatile fatty acids in the influent averaged 55,716 mg/L. It can be confirmed that most of the volatile fatty acids were decomposed and removed with an average reduction rate of 92.3% after anaerobic digestion.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.124-129
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• 2008

In this study, fuel qualities including kinematic viscosity and pour point in the various temperature, calorific value and combustion characteristics of two biodiesels based on the soybean and waste oil blended with light oil were investigated and discussed in order to figure out to confirm fuel compatibility taking the place of light oil in the hot air heater or boiler. As biodiesel content ratio increased calorific value of biodiesel decreased, and the difference was 13% between 100%-biodiesel and light oil. In general, pour points of the biodiesels were higher than light oil, and as biodiesel content ratio increased pour point increased. About 15 cSt was the pour point of biodiesels and light oil, which occurred at 3 to $4^{\circ}C$ in the biodiesels and $-25^{\circ}C$ in the light oil. Flame dimensions of biodiesels and light oil were almost same at the same combustion condition in the burner of the hot air heater. CO concentrations in the exhaustion gas were far lower than those of the light oil. Though pour point of biodiesel is a little inferior to light oil, still biodiesel can be an alternative fuel substituting for light oil in combustion system without much modifying the current oil combustion mechanism.

• 한국연소학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2014.11a
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• pp.375-378
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• 2014

In this study, we carried out torrefaction experiment using PKS(Palm Kernel Shell), and Bagasse as a raw material of oversee of herbaceous biomass and using waste wood and logging residue as a raw material of domestic of woody biomass. And then, by analyzing the physical & chemical properties, we investigated the characteristics as a fuel. By using the result of thermo gravimetric analysis, the biomass residue was torrefied for 30 minutes at a temperature range of $250-350^{\circ}C$ in anaerobic condition. As a result, torrefied materials of moisture content are lower than raw, but of fixed carbon, calorific value and ash are higher than raw.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.61-66
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• 2009

An experimental investigation was conducted to analyze the effects of biodiesel-ethanol and biodiesel-diesel blended fuels on the characteristics of combustion and exhaust emissions, and size distributions of particulate matter in a single cylinder diesel engine. The three types of test fuel were biodiesel and two blended fuels which were added ethanol and diesel by 20 % volume based fraction into biodiesel, respectively. In this study, the injection rate, combustion pressure, exhaust emissions and size distributions of particulate matter were measured under various injection timings and injection pressures. The experimental results show that biodiesel-ethanol blended fuel has lengthened ignition delay and low combustion pressure in comparison with those of biodiesel and biodiesel-diesel blended fuel even if all fuels indicated similar trends of injection rate under equal injection pressures. In addition, the ethanol blended fuel significantly reduced nitrogen oxidies (NOx) and soot emissions. And then the size distribution of particulate matters shows that blended fuels restrain the formation of particles which were beyond the range of 150nm comparison with biodiesel fuel.