• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.831-841
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• 2006

The study on school indoor air quality was carried out at classrooms, computer-rooms, laboratories and play- grounds for carbonyl compounds including formaldehyde during the winter time from November to December 2004 and during the summer time from June to July 2005. The sampling was conducted under the general school condition without any artificial intervention such as the sealing, ventilating or heating at indoor environments. The concentrations of formaldehyde at all types of indoor environments were lower than air quality standard of $120{\mu}g/m^3$ for public facilities. The mean concentrations of formaldehyde at indoors were $4.5{\sim}6.1$ times higher than those at outdoors. From the comparison between two year and one year old schools after construction, the concentrations of formaldehyde in two year old school were $30{\sim}38%$ lower than those in one year old school measured at classrooms and laboratories.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.370-376
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• 2005

For the purpose of investigating the effective removal of heating/cooling load from light-weighted building envelope, two air-conditioning systems, conventional parameter air-conditioning system and air-barrier system, are evaluated and compared by both experiment and simulation with six different cases during heating and cooling season. In addition, the characteristics of window-side building thermal load are assessed by varying supply air velocity in order to seek the optimal system operation condition. The results are as follows. 1) Air-barrier system is more effective to remove heating/cooling load at perimeter zone than conventional parameter air-conditioning system. Moreover, the better effectiveness appears during cooling season than during heating season. 2) The experiment during cooling season provides that indoor temperature of air-barrier system shows $1^{\circ}C$ less than that of the conventional system with similar outdoor air temperature profile, and indoor temperature distribution is more uniform throughout the experimented model space. It concludes that air-barrier system can achieve energy saving comparing to the conventional system. 3) The capturing efficiency of air-barrier system is 0.47 on heating season and 0.2 on cooling season with the same supply air volume. It results that the system performs effectively to remove building thermal load, moreover demonstrates high efficiency during cooling season. 4) The simulation results provide that capturing efficiency to evaluate the effective removal of building load from perimeter zone shows high value when supply air velocity is 1 m/s.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.33 no.1 s.94
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• pp.1-10
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• 2007

This study accomplished to grasp the present condition of HAPs and to examine efficiently carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic health effects through health risk assessment in new apartments from June, 2004 to May,2005. Moreover, we performed uncertainty analysis by Monte-Carlo analysis to control uncertainty of exposure factors. The major results obtained from this study were as follows. Firstly, cancer risk of formaldehyde for male was $1.67{\times}10^{-5}$ in CTE in point estimation. Cancer risk of formaldehyde was showed $2.94{\times}10^{-3}$ in RME that applied worst case used results of 95 percentile in point estimation. It exceeds $10^{-6}$ of guide line in US EPA. Moreover, cancer risks of formaldehyde for female were $3.98{\times}10^{-5}$ in CTE and $3.93{\times}10^{-3}$ RME. Secondly, every hazard index for non-carcinogenic pollutants was less than 1 of permitted standards in CTE. However, in RME of male, hazard indexes of 1,2-Dichloropropane and Toluene were 1.3 and 2.0, respectively. Hazard indexes of 1,2-Dichloropropane and Totuene for female in RME were 1.7 and 2.6, respectively.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.1B
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• pp.137-147
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• 2008

Soil Vapor Extraction (SVE) has been extensively used to remove volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the vadoze zone. In order to investigate the removal mechanism during SVE operation, laboratory modeling experiments were carried out and tailing effect could be observed in later stage of the experiment. Tailing effect means that removal rate of contaminants gets significantly to decrease in later stage of SVE operation. Also, mathematical model simulating the tailing effect was used, which considers rate-limited diffusion in a water film during mass transfer among gas, liquid, and solid phases. Measurement data obtained through the experiment was used as input data of the numerical analyses. Sensitivity analysis was performed to examine the effect of each parameter on required time to reach final target concentration. Finally, it was found that the concentration in the soil phase decreased significantly with a liquid and gas diffusion coefficient larger, actual path length shorter, and water saturation smaller.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.283-290
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• 2008

The repair technique using surface impregnation of reactive compound is so effective for deteriorated concrete structures that many researches are recently focused on these works. Particularly, inorganic impregnant is regarded as ecofriendly material because there is no air-pollution during manufacturing process as well as field coating works. Furthermore, The delamination between old concrete and impregnated surface does not occur, resulting from different material characteristics. In order to evaluate the durability performance of surface-impregnated concrete, durability evaluation through the long-term exposure tests is significant, however, experiments are usually limited to the temporary and qualitative laboratorial scope. In this study, durability characteristics for inorganic and organic/inorganic impregnated concrete specimens are evaluated through longterm chloride exposure test. The specimens with 21MPa and 34MPa strength have been prepared and exposed to chloride attack in the atmospheric, tidal, and submerged conditions. Evaluation for compressive strength, chloride penetration, and electrical potential (half cell potential) for steel corrosion are performed for the specimens exposed for 2 years. From the results, no distinct strength gaining is observed but the resistance to chloride penetration and steel corrosion is evaluated to be improved through surface impregnation. The more improved resistance to chloride attack is measured in the inorganic impregnated concrete and the results from atmospheric condition show more improved resistance to chloride attack than those from submerged and tidal condition.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.369-377
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• 2018

This study investigated the effect of noise and reverberation on subjective measure of speech transmission performance for elderly person with hearing loss in residential space through listening test. Floor impact, road traffic, airborne, and drainage noise were employed as the residential noise, and several impulse responses were obtained through room acoustical computer simulation for an apartment building. Sound sources for the listening test consisted of residential noises and speech sounds for boh the young (the original sound) and the aged (the sound filtered out by filters with frequency responses of hearing loss of 65 years elderly person). In the listening test, subjects evaluated speech intelligibility and listening difficulty for the presented word ($L_{Aeq}$ 55 dB) at three noise levels ($L_{Aeq}$ 30, 40, 50 dB) and three reverberation times (0.5, 1.0, 1.5 s). Results showed that the residential space with noise level lower than equal to 50 dB ($L_{i,Fmax,AW}$) for jumping noise and 40 dB ($L_{Aeq}$) for road traffic, airborne, and drainage noise had speech intelligibility of 90 % and over and listening difficulty of 30 % and below. Speech intelligibility and listening difficulty for the aged sound source was shown to be 0 % ~ 5 % lower and 2 % ~ 20 % higher than those for the young sound source, respectively.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.3643-3652
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• 2015

The aim of this study is to analyze the IAQ concentrations of school rooms. In this study we measured and characterized IAQ at 440 school rooms from May 2009 to November 2012. At some school rooms, the $PM_{10}$ concentrations exceeded the IAQ guidelines ($100{\mu}g/m^3$) of the Ministry of Education. $CO_2$ concentrations at high schools were 1.18 and 1.06 times higher than that of the elementary and middle schools, respectively. $CO_2$ concentrations of some school rooms were exceeded the IAQ guidelines (1,000 ppm). Moreover, TBC concentrations at elementary school rooms were 1.23 and 1.33 times higher than that of the middle schools and high schools, respectively. TBC and HCHO concentrations did not exceed the IAQ guidelines. The classroom/non-classroom ratio of $PM_{10}$ was 1.06, while that $CO_2$ was 1.04, HCHO was 0.62, and TBC was 1.16.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.334-348
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• 2017

Objectives: We investigated the impacts of indoor plants on indoor air quality and occupational health, focusing on allergic rhinconjunctivitis and stress among employees in new office buildings. Methods: A total of 34 employees working at new public office buildings were enrolled as subjects (n=17, with indoor plants) and as a control (n=17) group. Before and after introducing indoor plants for three months, indoor air quality measurements including VOCs and aldehydes and questionnaires on sick building syndrome, AR symptoms (ARIA based), stress (DASS 42, KOSS, and SACL), and indoor characteristics were performed and statistically analysed. Results: Among the 34 enrolled subjects, 19 were included in the probable AR subject group (subjects with indoor plants, n=8, control n=11) and completed all questionnaires. Statistical analyses were done for total, AR subject groups, and controls. As a result, it was confirmed that major indoor air pollutants decreased after the introduction of indoor plants (p<0.5). Among major symptoms of allergic rhinoconjunctivitis, watery rhinorrhea, nasal stuffiness, and nasal itching indexes decreased (p<0.5, respectively). A decrease was noted in some areas of work-related stress indexes (mainly KOSS) among the subject group (total and AR) and a decrease of indoor environmental attractiveness among the control group (total and AR) (p<0.5, for all). Conclusions: Indoor plants may help reduce indoor air pollutants and decrease AR symptoms and work-related stress of employees in newly built office buildings. Various further follow-up studies on the mechanism of environmental, physical, and emotional influences and utilization of indoor plants in association with allergic diseases will be needed.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.217-226
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• 2024

This study aimed to investigate the influence of anions in the air on the purification of fine dust (PM10 and PM2.5) and to evaluate the effects of plants on the generation of anions in the air and the purification of fine dust. Subsequently, the fine dust reduction models were compared according to each factor and plant volume. The characteristics of anion generation by each factor were observed to be in the order of Type N.I (negative ion generator; 204,133.33 ea/cm³) > Type P₃₀ (plant vol. 30%; 362.55 ea/cm³) > Type C (control; 46.22 ea/cm³), indicating that the amount of anion generation in the anion generator treatment group and the plant arrangement group were approximately 4,417 times and 7 times higher, respectively, than that in the untreated group. Consequently, the fine dust reduction characteristics by anion generation source showed that for PM10, Type NI had a purification efficiency 2.52 times higher than Type C, and Type P₃₀ was 1.46 times higher, while for PM2.5, Type NI had a purification efficiency 2.26 times higher than Type C, and Type P₃₀ was 1.31 times higher. The efficiency of fine dust purification by plant volume was in the order of Type P₂₀ (84.60 minutes) > Type P₃₀ (106.50 minutes) = Type P₂₅ (115.50 minutes) = Type P₁₅ (117.60 minutes) > Type P₅ (125.25 minutes) = Type P₁₀ (129.75 minutes), and for ultrafine dust, Type P₂₀ (104.00 minutes) > Type P₃₀ (133.20 minutes) = Type P₂₅ (144.00 minutes) = Type P₁₅ (147.60 minutes) > Type P₅ (161.25 minutes) = Type P₁₀ (168.00 minutes). Thus, a quantitative analysis of the anions and plants for purifying fine dust and suggested matters to be considered for future green space planning and plant planting considering fine dust purification.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.496-513
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• 2004

This study was carried out to evaluate the performance of sampling and analytical methodology used for the measurement of toxic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the ambient air. VOCs were determined by the adsorbent tube sampling and automatic thermal desorption coupled with GC/MSD analysis. Target analytes were 33 compounds including major aromatic compounds such as BTEX, and halogenated compounds. The methodology was investigated with a wide range of different adsorbents which are commercially available and have been frequently adopted for the VOC measurement. A total of 10 adsorbents were tested in this study: 6 carbon-based adsorbents such as Carbotrap, Carbopack B, Carbosieve S-III, Carboxen 1000, Carbotrap C, Activated Charcoal; and 4 polymer-based adsorbents including Tenax, Porapak Q, Chromosorb 102, and Chromosorb 106. The sampling performance was evaluated with respect to the sampling capacity of VOCs with single-adsorbent and multiple-adsorbents methods for standard samples and field samples. As a result, the best adsorbents for single-adsorbent method in the sampling of toxic organic compounds (including benzene, toluene, xylenes etc.) appeared to be Carbotrap, Carbopack B and Tenax TA. On the other hand, Chromosorb 102, Chromosorb 106 and Porapak Q were found to be unsuitable adsorbents for VOC measurement based on thermal desorption method. Multi-adsorbent packings were evaluated with 4 carbon-based adsorbents, which classified by 3 combination sets of double adsorbents and 2 combination sets of triple adsorbents. The results indicated that the most suitable combination for toixc VOC measurements is Carbotrap C with Carbotrap. Multi-sorbents tubes packed with a strong adsorbent such as Carbosieve S-III or Carboxen 1000 were found to be relatively unsuitable for several compounds, not only owing to the effect of migration of adsorbed compounds from weaker adsorbent to stronger adsorbent, but to hydrophobic nature of the adsorbents. Therefore, it should be addressed that selection of a proper adsorbent (or combination of multi sorbents) is extremely important to obtain reliable data for the concentrations of toxic VOCs in indoor and outdoor environments.