• Carbon letters
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.97-104
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• 2006

The influence of carbon surface area, carbon-oxygen groups associated with the carbon surface and the solution pH on the adsorption of Pb(II) ions from aqueous solutions has been studied using three activated carbons. The adsorption isotherms are Type I of BET classification and the data obeys Langmuir adsorption equation. The BET surface area has little effect on the adsorption while it is strongly influenced by the presence of acidic carbon oxygen surface groups. The amount of these surface groups was enhanced by oxidation of the carbons with different oxidizing agents and reduced by eliminating these groups on degassing at different temperatures. The adsorption of Pb(II) ions increases on each oxidation and decreases on degassing the oxidized carbons. The increase in adsorption on oxidation has been attributed to the formation of acidic carbon-oxygen surface groups and the decrease to the elimination of these acidic surface groups on degassing. The adsorption is also influenced by the pH of the aqueous solution. The adsorption is only small at pH values lower than 3 but is considerably larger at higher pH values. Suitable mechanisms consistent with the adsorption data have been suggested.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.47-54
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• 2014

Nanotechnology has become one of the fastest developing technologies and recently applied to a variety of industries. Thus, increasing number of nano materials including various nanoparticles would be discharged into wastewater and consequently entering a biological wastewater treatment process. However, the impact of the nano particles on biological wastewater treatment has not been estimated intensively. In this research, we investigated the effect of silica nanoparticle on the oxygen uptake rates (OURs) of activated sludge used in a conventional wastewater treatment process. The inhibition (%) values were estimated from the results of OURs experiments for the silica nanoparticles with various sizes of 10-15, 45-50, and 70-100 nm and concentrations of 50, 250, and 500 ppm. As results, the inhibition value was increased as the size of silica nano particles decreased and the injected concentration increased. The maximum inhibition value was investigated as 37.4 % for the silica nanoparticles with the size of 45-50 nm and concentration of 50 ppm. Additionally, the effect of size and concentration on the inhibition should be considered cautiously in case that the aggregation of particles occurred seriously so that the size of individual particles was increased in aquatic solution.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Tobacco Science
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.9-17
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• 2009

Activated carbon fiber (ACF) was surface modified by nitric acid to improve the adsorption efficiency of the propylamine. Functional groups and textural properties of modified ACF were investigated. The total surface acidity increased about 7 times to that of as-received ACF by modification with 1 M nitric acid solution, carboxylic and phenolic groups mainly increased. However, the specific surface areas and the total pore volumes of the modified ACFs were decreased by 5-8% due to the increased blocking (or demolition) of micropores in the presence of newly introduced complexes. Despite the decrease of textural properties, it was found that the amount of propylamine adsorbed by the modified ACFs was increased by approximately 17%. The oxygen and nitrogen contents on the modified ACF increased by 1.5 and 3 times compared with the as-received ACF. From the XPS results, it was observed that propylamine reacted with strong or weak acidic groups, such as -COOH or -OH on the ACF surfaces, resulting in the formation of pyrrolic-, pyridonic- or pyridine-like structures.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.157-163
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• 2000

An experimental study was conducted to evaluate the treatment efficiency of paper-mill wastewater using pure oxygen activated sludge process. Effects of hydraulic retention time (HRT) and organic loading on process performance and kinetics were investigated. The raw paper-mill wastewater(BOD concentration ${\leq}500mg/L$) and the effluent from dissolved air flotation(DAF) treatment(BOD concentration ${\geq}500mg/L$) were used as influent for pure oxygen activated sludge process. Average BOD removal efficiencies were above 89.3% under 6hours or longer of HRT, while under 3hours of HRT they decreased to about 82%. With the effluent from DAF process, the half saturation constants($K_S$) and the maximum specific substrate removal rate($K_{max}$) were 85 mg/L and 2.25 L/day, respectively. However, with the raw paper-mill wastewater, both $K_S$ and $K_{max}$ increased to 156 mg/L and 3.84 L/day, respectively. The microbial yield coefficient(Y) and the decay coefficient($K_d$) were 0.46 gVSS/gBOD and 0.03 L/day, respectively, with effluent from DAF process. While, Y and $K_d$ were 0.24 gVSS/gBOD and 0.035 L/day, respectively, with the raw paper-mill wastewater.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.241-248
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• 2014

It is debatable whether AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) activation is involved in anti-apoptotic or pro-apoptotic signaling. AICAR treatment increases AMPK-${\alpha}1$ phosphorylation, decreases intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels, and significantly increases Annexin V-positive cells, DNA laddering, and caspase activity in human myeloid cell. AMPK activation is therefore implicated in apoptosis. However, AMPK-${\alpha}1$-knockdown THP-1 cells are more sensitive to apoptosis than control THP-1 cells are, suggesting that the apoptosis is AMPK-independent. Low doses of AICAR induce cell proliferation, whereas high doses of AICAR suppress cell proliferation. Moreover, these effects are significantly correlated with the downregulation of intracellular ROS, strongly suggesting that AICAR-induced apoptosis is critically associated with the inhibition of NADPH oxidase by AICAR. Collectively, our results demonstrate that in AICAR-induced apoptosis, intracellular ROS levels are far more relevant than AMPK activation.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.683-686
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• 2002

To achieve optimum operation of a thermophilic aerobic digestion (TAD) process for waste activated sludge (WAS), TAD experiments using Bacillus stearothermophilus (ATCC 31197) were carried out to investigate the optimum concentration of dissolved oxygen (DO). TAD reactors were operated at DO concentrations of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 ppm, and the results showed that the WAS could be successfully degraded by a TAD system operated with a DO concentration of 1 ppm and above. When the TAD system with an optimum additive (2 mM Ca ion), selected from a previous study, and 1 ppm DO concentration were combined with a thermal pretreatment ($121^{\circ}C$, 10 min), the results exhibited upgraded total suspended solids and an enhanced protein degradation.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.160-166
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• 2019

In this study, oxygen functional groups were introduced on activated carbon fibers (ACFs) by oxygen plasma treatment to improve the adsorption performance on an acetic acid which is a sick house syndrome induced gas. The active species was generated more as the flow rate of the oxygen gas increased during the plasma treatment. For this reason, the specific surface area (SSA) of the ACFs decreased with much more physical and chemical etching. In particular, the SSA of the sample (A-O60) injected with an oxygen gas flow rate of 60 sccm was reduced to about $1.198m^2/g$, which was about 6.95% lower than that of the untreated samples. On the other hand, the oxygen content introduced into the surface of ACFs increased up to 35.87%. Also, the adsorption performance on the acetic acid gas of the oxygen plasma-treated ACFs was improved by up to 43% compared to that of using the untreated ACFs. It is attributed to the formation of the hydrogen bonding due to the dipole moments between acetic acid molecules and oxygen functional groups such as O=C-O introduced by the oxygen plasma treatment.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.23-28
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• 2024

Cesium is a potential toxic contaminant due to its high solubility, which allows it to easily penetrate the human body and potentially induce cancer or DNA mutations. In this study, oxygen functional groups were introduced on activated carbons (ACs) by ozone treatment to enhance the cesium adsorption capacity. As the ozone treatment time increased, the oxygen content on the ACs surface increased. Subsequently, the electrostatic interaction between ACs and cesium enhanced, resulting in higher cesium ion adsorption efficiency across all samples. In particular, the sample treated with ozone for 7 minutes at an internal ozone concentration of 50000 ppm had roughly 12% greater oxygen functional group content and the highest cesium removal effectiveness (97.6%). Meanwhile, samples treated for 5 minutes showed a 0.3% cesium removal rate difference compared to those treated for 7 minutes, which was caused by the surface chemical similarity of the two samples due to the reactive characteristics of ozone gas. However, the cesium adsorption performance of ozonated activated carbon seems to be mainly influenced by the amount of oxygen functional groups introduced to the surface, although the specific surface area and pore structure of the activated carbon are also important.

• Proceedings of the Korea Environmental Mutagen Society Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.160-160
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• 2004

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.21 no.E2
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• pp.41-48
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• 2005

A novel hybrid system composed of a biotrickling filter and an activated sludge reactor was investigated under the conditions of four different SRTs (sludge retention times). The performance of the hybrid reactor was found to be directly comparable among the four different sludge ages. Discernible differences in the removal performance were observed among four different SRTs of 2, 4, 6, and 8 days. High removal efficiency was achieved by continuous circulation of activated sludge over the immobilized mixture culture, which allowed on pH control, addition of nutrients, and removal of paint VOCs (volatile organic compounds). The results also showed that the removal efficiency for a given pollutant depends on the activity of microorganisms based on the SRT. As the SRT increased gradually from 2 to 8 days, the average removal performance decreased. The highest removal rate was achieved at the SRT of 2 days at which the highest OUR (oxygen uptake rate), $6.1mg-O_2/liter-min$ was measured. Biological activity in the recycle microbes decreased to a much lower level, $3.6mg-O_2/liter-min$ at a SRT of 8 days. It is thus believed that young microorganisms were more active and more efficient for the VOCs removal of low concentrations and high flow rates. The apparent correlation of $R^2=0.996$ between the average removal efficiency and the average OUR at each SRTs suggests that VOCs degradation by young cells significantly affected the overall removal efficiency for the tested SRTs.