• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.62 no.1
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• pp.36-43
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• 2024

Fishing net waste (FNW) constitutes over half of all marine plastic waste and is a major contributor to the degradation of marine ecosystems. While current treatment options for FNW include incineration, landfilling, and mechanical recycling, these methods often result in low-value products and pollutant emissions. Importantly, FNWs, comprised of plastic polymers, can be converted into valuable resources like syngas and pyrolysis oil through pyrolysis. Thus, this study presents a process for generating high-purity hydrogen (H₂) by catalytically pyrolyzing FNW in a CO₂ environment. The proposed process comprises of three stages: First, the pretreated FNW undergoes Ni/SiO₂ catalytic pyrolysis under CO₂ conditions to produce syngas and pyrolysis oil. Second, the produced pyrolysis oil is incinerated and repurposed as an energy source for the pyrolysis reaction. Lastly, the syngas is transformed into high-purity H₂ via the Water-Gas-Shift (WGS) reaction and Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA). This study compares the results of the proposed process with those of traditional pyrolysis conducted under N₂ conditions. Simulation results show that pyrolyzing 500 kg/h of FNW produced 2.933 kmol/h of high-purity H₂ under N₂ conditions and 3.605 kmol/h of high-purity H₂ under CO₂ conditions. Furthermore, pyrolysis under CO₂ conditions improved CO production, increasing H₂ output. Additionally, the CO₂ emissions were reduced by 89.8% compared to N₂ conditions due to the capture and utilization of CO₂ released during the process. Therefore, the proposed process under CO₂ conditions can efficiently recycle FNW and generate eco-friendly hydrogen product.

• Korean Journal of Weed Science
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.340-360
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• 2010

The depletion of fossil fuels, ecological problems associated with $CO_2$ emissions climate change, growing world population, and future energy supplies are forcing the development of alternative resources for energy (heat and electricity), transport fuels and chemicals: the replacement of fossil resources with $CO_2$ neutral biomass. Several options exist to cover energy supplies of the future, including solar, wind, and water power; however, chemical carbon source can get from biomass only. When used in combination with environmental friend production and processing technology, the use of biomass can be seen as a sustainable alternative to conventional chemical feedstocks. The biorefinery concept is analogous to today's petroleum refinery, which produce multiple fuels and chemical products from petroleum. A biorefinery is a facility that integrates biomass conversion processes and equipment to produce fuels, power, and value-added chemicals from biomass. Biorefinery is the co-production of a spectrum of bio-based products (food, feed, materials, and chemicals) and energy (fuels, power, and heat) from biomass [definition IEA Bioenergy Task 42]. By producing multiple products, a biorefinery takes advantage of the various components in biomass and their intermediates therefore maximizing the value derived from the biomass feedstocks. A biorefinery could, for example, produce one or several low-volume, but high-value, chemical or nutraceutical products and a low-value, but high-volume liquid transportation fuel such as biodiesel or bioethanol. Future biorefinery may play a major role in producing chemicals and materials as a bridge between agriculture and chemistry that are traditionally produced from petroleum. Industrial biotechnology is expected to significantly complement or replace the current petroleum-based industry and to play an important role.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2017

Bio-oil has attracted considerable interest as one of the promising renewable energy resources because it can be used as a feedstock in conventional petroleum refineries for the production of high value chemicals or next-generation hydrocarbon fuels. Zeolites have been shown to effectively promote cracking reactions during pyrolysis resulting in highly deoxygenated and hydrocarbon-rich compounds and stable pyrolysis oil products. In this study, catalytic pyrolysis was applied to upgrade bio-oil from yellow poplar and then fuel characteristics of upgraded bio-oil was investigated. Yellow Poplar(500 g) which ground 0.3~1.4 mm was processed into bio-oil by catalytic pyrolysis for 1.64 seconds at $465^{\circ}C$ with Control, Blaccoal, Whitecoal, ZeoliteY and ZSM-5. Under the catalyst conditions, bio-oil productions decreased from 54.0%(Control) to 51.4 ~ 53.5%, except 56.2%(Blackcoal). HHV(High heating value) of upgraded bio-oil was more lower than crude bio-oil while the water content increased from 37.4% to 37.4 ~ 45.2%. But the other properties were improved significantly. Under the upgrading conditions, ash and TAN(Total Acid Number) is decrease and particularly important as transportation fuel, the viscosity of bio-oil decreased from 6,933 cP(Control) to 2,578 ~ 4,627 cP. In addition, ZeoliteY was most effective on producing aromatic hydrocarbons and decreasing of from the catalytic pyrolysis.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.154-161
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• 2022

The carbon-neutrality induced by the global warming is important for the modern society. Hydrogen has been received the attention as a new energy source to replace the fossil fuels. Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells, which convert the chemical reaction energy of hydrogen into electric power directly, are a type of eco-friendly power for future vehicles. Due to the sluggish oxygen reduction reaction and costly Pt catalyst in the cathode, the research related to the replacement of Pt-based catalysts has been vitally carried out. In this case, however, the performance is significantly different from each other and a variety of factors have existed. In this review paper, we rearrange and summarize relevant papers published within 5 years approximately. The selection of precursors, synthesis method, and co-catalyst are represented as a core factor, while the necessity of research for the further enhancement of activity may be raised. It can be anticipated to contribute to the replacement of precious metal catalysts in the various fields of study. The final objective of the future research is depicted in detail.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.804-815
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• 2019

Due to the depletion and environmental problems of fossil fuel, biomass has arisen as an alternative energy source. Biomass is a renewable and carbon-neutral source. However, it is moister and has lower energy density. Therefore, biomass needs thermal chemical conversion processes like gasification, and it does not only produce a flammable gas, called 'syngas', which consists of CO, H2, and CH4, but also some unwanted byproducts such as tars and some particulates. These contaminants are condensed and foul in pipelines, combustion chamber and turbine, causing a deterioration in efficiency. Thus this work attempted to find a method to remove tars and particles from syngas with a filter which adopts a pre-coating technology for preventing blockage of the filter medium. Hydrated limestone powder and activated carbon(wood char) powder were used as the pre-coat materials. The removal efficiency of the tars was 86 % and 80 % with activated carbon(wood char) coating and hydrated limestone coating, respectively.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.391-397
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• 2011

The use of Hydrogen as a fuel is receiving considerable attention and as a result, research on novel methods of hydrogen production is necessary so that the hydrogen demands in the future can be satisfied. This study presents experimental data on methanol Autothermal Reformation that quantifies the relationship between the oxygen-to-methanol ratio ($O_2/CH_3OH$) and reformer efficiency. For each catalyst configuration, the $O_2/CH_3OH$ was varied from 0.1 to 0.4, with an increment of 0.05, to investigate the effects of $O_2/CH_3OH$ on the reactor performance, including temperature profile, conversion, and efficiency. $O_2/CH_3OH$ was increased from 0.15 to 0.20, and the catalyst bed temperature increased by $235^{\circ}C$ to approximately $550^{\circ}C$. The catalyst bed temperature increased with increasing $O_2/CH_3OH$ as the reaction shifted from endothermic to exothermic reaction and as a result, excess heat, which raised the reactor temperature, was generated. The reactor performance was shown to be highly dependent on $O_2/CH_3OH$. The optimum $O_2/CH_3OH$ = 0.30 found in the experimental tests is 30% higher than the theoretical optimum of 0.23. This is attributed to a combination of factors such as the concentrations of the $O_2$ and $CH_3OH$ gas, reaction rate, catalyst effects, heat loss from the reactor, and the difference between the actual amounts of reaction products formed and the theoretical amounts of the reaction products.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.111-118
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• 2007

Global warming crisis due primarily to continued green house gas emission requires impending change to renewable alternative energy than continuously depending on exhausting fossil fuels. Bioenergy including biodiesel and bioethanol are considered good alternatives because of their renewable and sustainable nature. Bioethanol is currently being produced by using sucrose from sugar beet, grain starches or lignocellulosic biomass as sources of ethanol fermentation. However, grain production requires significant amount of fossil fuel inputs during agricultural practices, which means less competitive in reducing the level of green house gas emission. By contrast, cellulosic bioethanol can use naturally-growing, not-for-food biomass as a source of ethanol fermentation. In this respect, cellulosic ethanol than grain starch ethanol is considered a more appropriate as a alternative renewable energy. However, commercialization of cellulosic ethanol depends heavily on technology development. Processes such as securing enough biomass optimized for economic processing, pretreatment technology for better access of polymer-hydrolyzing enzymes, saccharification of recalcitrant lignocellulosic materials, and simultaneous fermentation of different sugars including 6-carbon glucose as well as 5-carbon xylose or arabinose waits for greater improvement in technologies. Although it seems to be a long way to go until commercialization, it should broadly benefit farmers with novel source of income, environment with greener and reduced level of global warming, and national economy with increased energy security. Mission-oriented strategies for cellulosic ethanol development participated by government funding agency and different disciplines of sciences and technologies should certainly open up a new era of renewable energy.

• 한국석유지질학회:학술대회논문집
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• autumn
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• pp.28-46
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• 2001

Natural gas is a mixture of hydrocarbon gases and impurities such as nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide, and carbon dioxide and a clean energy producing no pollution materials for combustion. Currently, the demand of the natural gas is rapidly increasing due to worldwide environmental problems. According to Hubbert's study in the past, the natural gas was predicted as rapidly depleted resources, and then the results led to high gas price and limitation of usage during 1980s. Afterward, the study of natural gas resources based on geology identified the additional natural gas resources that were not considered in Hubbert's study. They are unconventional gas, additional resources in the existed reservoirs, and natural gas in deep subsurface areas. Such additional resouces made the future of natural gas bright and pormised low and stable gas price in the future. Deep natural gas is defined as the gas existing at or below 15,000ft$(4,752{\cal}m)$ in depth from the surface. According to the study from the U.S. Geological Survey(USGS) in 1995, 1,412 TCF of technically recoverable natural gas was remained to be discovered or developed in the onshore of United States. A significant part of that resource base, 114 TCF, exists at deep sedimentary basins, and it shows wide distribution with various geological environments. In 1995, the deep gas contributed to $6.7\% of total supply amount of natural gas in the United States and is expected to be $18.7\% by 201.5. However, the development of the deep gas is a high risky business due to expensive investment and high portion of dry holes, although it is developed. Thus, for developing the deep gas economically, it is necessary to overcome many technical challenges. In this paper, for increasing success rate of the deep gas, 1) geologic and compositional characteristics, and production cost have been analyzed according to depth, 2) technical problems related to deep gas production have been summarized, and 3) finally future study areas for increasing application of the deep gas have been suggested. For reference, this paper was written based on the study results from USGS and Gas Research Institute(GRI), for the United States is doing the most active R&D in the deep gas area, and thus, has many reliable data.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.309-333
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• 2011

Korea is one of the countries that propel new renewable energy industrialization actively in the context of change in this industrial structure. The previous government declared this kind of industrialization as a national goal in 2004 and the current government also supports this strategy. However, it is necessary to check whether this strategy is proper and effective. The reason is because solar, wind and fuel cells that have attracted public attention as the new growth engines cannot replace main industries yet. This paper tries to analyze the economic effects of new renewable energy industrialization by dividing them into production effect and job creation effect. The result of this analysis shows that solar energy is not effective at all, while wind energy is very effective in both production and job creation. In conclusion, this paper suggests that the government has to propel new renewable energy industrialization after consideration of these kinds of economic effects.

• 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 $C_{18}$.