• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.55-61
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• 2011

NDMA(N-Nitrosodimethylamine) has been considered as a carcinogenic pollutant even at extremely low-concentration (10ng/L). However, previous researches on NDMA have focused on mainly high concentration due to a difficulty of analysis. In this study, removal efficiencies were evaluated for individual or combined methods with PAC(Powder Activated Carbon), GS(Granular Sludge), MF(Microfiltration), UF(Ultrafiltration) and Silica gel(MCM-41, Diatomite, Spherical silica gel) at both aerobic and anaerobic conditions. Combined method of GS, PAC and UF membrane at anaerobic condition showed the highest removal efficiency of 65% while Silica gel showed the lowest removal efficiency of 6%. The outcomes of this study could be used further study of extremely low-concentration NDMA removal.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.10
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• pp.16-23
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• 2018

Alternative technologies for sludge treatment and disposal need to be developed urgently because the amount of produced production has increased continuously. In this study, Pulsed Electric Fields (PEF) technique was applied for sludge solubilization and the performance was evaluated. The PEF equipped with electrodes coated by epoxy resin and teflon was inducted to the activated sludge suspension, and the effect of the coating materials on the solubilization was determined. In addition, the effect of the applied voltage on the solubilization yield was investigated as the applied voltage was increased from 6 to 12 and 15 kV. Sludge solubilization was not observed when the epoxy-coated electrode was used for PEF induction regardless of the applied voltage. However, sludge solubilization occurred when 12 and 15 kV were applied to the teflon-coated electrodes. The MLSS decreased to 9%, and the soluble-COD increased to 496% when the applied voltage was 15 kV. But sludge solubilization did not happen under 6 kV condition. The corona discharge was observed at applied voltages of 12 and 15 kV, (Ed- sorry but I cannot understand the following highlight) but if 6 kV, strongly indicating that the corona discharge make the sludge solubilized, which suggests that the critical voltage for sludge solubilization lies between 6 and 12 kV. Consequently, proper selection of electrode-coating materials and the applied voltage of PEF could lead to sludge solubilization by corona discharge.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.136-144
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• 1994

A long- time aeration method was developed for purification of animal wastewater. Under repeated aereations of 4 hours on and 4 hours off, the higher removal rates were obtained which were in average of 99%, 96%, 92% and 50% for BOD, SS, total nitrogen and phosporous, respectively. In detail, the measured BOD concentrations of the influent and effluent were 2,700ppm and 40ppm while the SS concentrations in the primary chamber and of the effluent were about 3,000 and 110 ppm, respectively. Zeolite and activated carbon, applied for removing the nitrogen and phosphorous, showed a good absorption, especially zeolite for NH$_4$-N and activated carbon for NO$_3$-N and PO$_4$-P. The treatment cost per head by this method amounts to 1,923 won and it comes to 1.6% in the whole production cost. Therefore, this method is economically available with the half cost of the conventional activated sludge process.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.68-74
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• 2016

Perchlorate (ClO₄⁻) is an emerging pollutant detected in surface water, soil, and groundwater. Previous studies provided experimental evidence of autotrophic ClO₄⁻ removal with elemental sulfur (S⁰) particles and activated sludge, which are inexpensive and easily available, respectively. In addition, ClO₄⁻ removal efficiency was shown to increase when an enrichment culture was used as an inoculum instead of activated sludge. PCR-DGGE was employed in the present study to investigate the microbial community in the enrichment culture that removed ClO₄⁻ autotrophically. Microorganisms in the enrichment culture showed 99.71% or more ClO₄⁻ removal efficiency after a 7-day incubation when the initial concentration was approximately 120 mg ClO₄⁻/l. Genomic DNA was isolated from the enriched culture and its inoculum (activated sludge), and used for PCR-DGGE analysis of 16S rRNA genes. Microbial compositions of the enrichment culture and the activated sludge were different, as determined by their different DGGE profiles. The difference in DGGE banding patterns suggests that environmental conditions of the enrichment culture caused a change in the microbial community composition of the inoculated activated sludge. Dominant DGGE bands in the enrichment culture sample were affiliated with the classes β-Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Spirochaetes. Further investigation is warranted to reveal the metabolic roles of the dominant populations in the ClO₄⁻ degradation process, along with their isolation.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.181-186
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• 1998

The effects of sewage treatment on characteristics of sludge as a composting material were investigated for a year during the initial operation at the full-scale Chunan sewage treatment plant. Due to the shortage of design capacity of belt press, a sludge dewatering unit, non-volatile solids were recirculating and concentrating in the treatment plant, resulting in an increase of MLSS and a decrease in F/M ratio at the activated sludge system. Special attention is required for long term operations since the increase of non-volatile solids in the plant would deteriorates the treatment efficiency. The sewage sludge of the Chunan sewage treatment plant showed 79.5% of water content, 11.6% of organic content, and C/N ratio of 6.1, and contained As 1.8 mg/kg, Cd 27 mg/kg, Hg <0.1 mg/kg, Pb 54 mg/kg, T-Cr 370 mg/kg, and Cu 1,100mg/kg of heavy metals. In order to be used as raw material for optimum composting, the sewage sludge requires bulking agents for moistrure/porosity control and a carbon source for adjusting C/N ratio. However, the sewage sludge is not adequate as a soil conditioner after composing due to a high content of heavy metals. If the sewage sludge has to he used as a soil conditioner after composting, it as required to identify and remove tire industrial wastewater portions in tire influent of the plant since heavy metals in the influent were mostly concentrated in dewatered sludge.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.264-270
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• 2010

Waste activated sludge from sewage treatment plants mainly consisted of flocs of bacterial cell, and thus hard to be stabilized anaerobically due to rigid cell walls. One of the pretreatment methods to overcome this barrier is the venturi cavitation system (VCS) adopting hydrodynamic cavitation. This research was conducted to investigate the effects of the pretreatment of waste activated sludge by VCS on the anaerobic digestibility. Depending on the pretreatment period with the VCS, methane production, COD removal and VS removal efficiency increased 41%~45%, 36.5%~43.1% and 18.4~24.1%, respectively, compared to the control case. The increase in methane production from digester was 3.3~4.2 times higher than the theoretical methane potential of the increased SCOD after the VCS pre-treatment. This suggests that the VCS pre-treatment not only increases SCOD but also improves the digestibility of solid fractions. The energy mass balance indicated that the energy consumed for sludge pre-treatment could be recovered by the increased methane production after pre-treatment, suggesting the high potential for field application.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.206-214
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• 2005

This study was initiated to evaluate efficiencies of suspenced-growth processes(CAS; Conventional Activated Sludge, MLE; Modified Ludzack-Ettinger) and hybrid process(Modified-Dephanox) on removal of organic matter(C), nitrogen(N) and phosphorus(P) in municipal wastewater. M-Dephanox process was designed to improve the performance of Dephanox process on denitrification efficiency. As the results, removal efficiencies of total chemical oxygen demand(TCOD), total nitrogen(T-N) and total phosphorus(T-P) in M-Dephanox process, which is hybrid process, were 12,3, 18.6 and 28.2% higher than those in MLE, which is suspended-growth process. The better removal efficiencies of TCOD, T-N and T-P in M-Dephanox than those in MLE result that M-Dephanox is not only hybrid or multi-sludge process but also process using biosorption mechanism which is possible to use organics in denitrification, effectively. Ammonia removal efficiency in nitrification reactor of M-Dephanox was 96.7% at short hydraulic retention time(HRT) of 2 hr which was 3 hr more short HRT than that(HRT 5 hr) reported in other related papers. This indicates that M-Dephanox process can reduce HRT of whole process.

• Water for future
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.61-66
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• 1992

This study was to determine the static acute toxicity on Daphnia magna for the Electric cable Factory Wastewater. Activated sludge process was used to treat the wastewater with three different F/M ratios, 0.36, 0.2, 0.1 mg COD/day.mg MLSS. The results of laboratory bioassay with Daphnia magna were as follows. 1)24hr, 48hr-LC$ of the influent were 17.33% and 11.73%. 2)24hr-LC $ of effluents treated with F/M ratio 0.36,0.26 and 0.1mg COD/day.mg MLSS were 26.69% 32.70% and 38.36% respectively, 48-LC$ of these effluents were 14.48% 27.88% and 31.58% respectively. 3)According to various F/M ratios, the ratios of dffluent 48hr-LC$ to filtrated 48hr-LC$ were 1.58, 1.83 and 1.47respectively 4)Activated sludge process effluents treated with activated carbon had little toxicity on Daphnia magna.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.51-58
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• 2006

The effluent limitations for individual industry based on the best available technology economically achievable (BAT) have been required to achieve effective regulation. BAT assessment criteria that are suitable for the circumstances of Korean industry were developed in the previous study. The criteria were applied to determine the BAT for leather tanning and finishing industry. For the evaluation BAT, a subcategorization for the industry considering wastewater characteristics, source equipments, raw material and so on should be suggested. Three subcategories: A) Unharing, Chrome Tan, Retan-Wet Finish, B) Chrome Tan, Retan-Wet Finish, and C) Furskins were proposed in this study. Wastewater discharged from the each category contains high concentration of COD, chrome, nitrogen and sulfide. In particular, the concentration of nitrogen from the subcategory A is significantly greater. Twenty sites were surveyed and wastewater qualities were analyzed. Therefore, six different technologies were applied to the subcategory A for the end-of-pipe treatment technology, and a technology was used in the subcategory B and C, respectively. The technology candidates were evaluated in terms of environmental impacts, economically achievability, treatment performance and economical reasonability. As the result, the technology options for each subcategories: A) primary chemical precipitation + modified Ludzack-Ettinger process (MLE) + secondary chemical precipitation, B) chemical precipitation + typical activated-sludge process + Fenton oxidation, C) chemical precipitation + typical activated-sludge process + batch Fenton oxidation or batch activated carbon treatment were selected as the BAT, respectively.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.11 no.1_2
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• pp.31-39
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• 1996

Leachate from municipal solid waste (MSW) landfill, effluent from leachate treatment plant, and ground water sample from a monitoring well near landfill site were tested for an acute toxicity. Microtox toxicity test was used for testing the acute toxicity of leachate and other samples. EC$_{50}$ values which a concentration of pollutant for reducing 50% light output from luminescent bacteria, Photobacterium phosphoreum were determined to assess the toxicity of pollutants as well as the relative toxicity. In addition, characteristics of leachate were studied and compared to those of phenol and pentachlorophenol (PCP) which are typical aquatic toxic pollutants. For leachate, EC$_{50}$ for 30 min incubation was 10.8%, while for phenol and PCP, 46 ppm and 1.2 ppm, respectively. the relative toxicity of treated leachate by in situ aeration with activated sludge was reduced to more than 75% of toxicity of the untreated leachate. Microtox toxicity test was failed to figure out EC$_{50}$ values for groundwater from a monitoring well since the relative toxicity of the unconcentrated sample was too low to estimate EC$_{50}$. Addition of activated carbon to leachate was reduced the relative toxicity. The reduction Pattern of the relative toxicity of leachate by mechanical aeration was similar to that of PCP, but different from that of phenol. These findings suggest that the toxicity of leachate may come from PCP-like toxic compounds rather than phenol-like one. In conclusion, the process of aeration with activated sludge might be very important to reduce the environmental toxicity of leachate. And Microtox test could be a reasonable bioassay for screening and monitoring the environmental toxicity of leachate from municipal solid waste landfill as well as for determining the reduction efficiency of the leachate toxicity by various treatment processes in leachate treatment plant.