• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• v.5 no.6
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• pp.469-474
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• 2000

In order to enhance the degradation efficiency of waste activated sludge (WAS) by thermophilic aerobic digestion, an ultrasonic pretreatment was examined. It was observed that ultrasonic pretreatment increased the solubilization of organic matter in the WAS and that the solubilization ratio of the organics increased during the first 30 min but did not extensively increase thereafter. Therefore, a pretreatment time of 30 min was determined to be the economical pretreatment time from the experimental results. From the digestion experiments, which was conducted using the WAS collected from an oil refinery plant in Inchon, Korea, investigating the effects of an ultrasonic pretreatment on thermophilic aerobic digestion, it was confirmed that the proposed ultrasonic pretreatment was effective at enhancing the release of the cellular components in WAS and the degradation of released components in the thermophilic aerobic digestion.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.906-912
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• 2007

A lab-scale thermophilic aerobic digestion (TAD) system was operated at $64^{\circ}C$ with mixed primary and secondary sludges taken from a large wastewater treatment plant. The semi-continuously operated reactor at HRTs of 1, 3 and 6 days indicated that longer HRT could stabilize sludge organics and solids comparable to anaerobic digestion. It has been found that reduced HRT of 3 and 1 day produced the effluent with highly biodegradable soluble organics, indicating the possibility of energy recovery in TAD. No proof of biological nitrification was observed at thermophilic operating temperature of $64^{\circ}C$, while nitrogen removal seemed due to nitrogen exertion during the aerobic thermophilic cell synthesis as well as ammonia stripping.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.93-98
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• 2009

The thermophilic aerobic digestion (TAD) process is recognized as an effective method for rapid waste activated sludge (WAS) degradation and the deactivation of pathogenic microorganisms. Yet, high energy costs due to heating and aeration have limited the commercialization of economical TAD processes. Previous research on autothermal thermophilic aerobic digestion (ATAD) has already reduced the heating cost. However, only a few studies have focused on reducing the aeration cost. Therefore, this study applied a two-step aeration control strategy to a fill-and-draw mode semicontinuous TAD process. The NADH-dependent fluorescence was monitored throughout the TAD experiment, and the aeration rate shifted according to the fluorescence intensity. As a result, the simple two-step aeration control operation achieved a 20.3% reduction in the total aeration, while maintaining an effective and stable operation. It is also expected that more savings can be achieved with a further reduction of the lower aeration rate or multisegmentation of the aeration rate.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.570-576
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• 2001

Thermophilic aerobic bacteria were applied in the degradation of industrial waste activated sludge (WAS) on a laboratory scale expreiment. The performance of digestion was estimated by measuring the reduction of total suspended solids (TSS), dissolved organic carbon (DOC), and total organic carbon (TOC). Among three strains of Bacillus stearothermophilus and three strains of Thermus species, B. stearothemophilus ATCC 31197 showed the best overall efficiency level for the degradation of industrial WAS, which was collected from a wastewater treatment plant in an oil refinery factory. Industrial WAS coul be successfully detraded in a batch digestion with ATCC 31197. The stability of the digestion process with ATCC 31197 was successfully verified by semi-continuous (fill-and-draw) digestion experiment. From the results of this study, it was shown that the thermophilic aerobic digestion process with ATCC 31197 could efficiently be applied to the degradation of industrial WAS.

• Proceedings of KOSOMES biannual meeting
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.97-102
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• 2007

The piggery wastewater is the major source of the water pollution problem in the rural area. The treatment alternatives for piggery wastewater are limited by the characteristics of both high organic and nitrogen(N) content. In order to investigate an efficient N removal system, the thermophilic aerobic digestion process was examined. The experiment was investigated organic and nitrogen removal efficiency at various HRTs and air supply volume. The results of semi-continuous experiment indicated that a higher removal of the soluble portion of COD was achieved with the longer HRTs. However, the inert portion of COD in piggery wastewater was not much changed by thermophilic aerobic digestion. In addition, with the higher HRT of 3 days, up to 79% of NH4-N removal efficiency was achieved. Lower the HRTs, a decrease of NH4-N removal was founds. The gas samples from the lab reactor were analyzed along with the N content in influent and effluent. The N2O formation in our system indicates a novel aerobic deammonification process occurred during the thermophilic aerobic digestion. Both N02 and N03 were not presented in the effluent of thermophilic aerobic digester. With the HRT of 3 days, 36.4% of influent N(or 57.5% removal N) was aerobically converted to N2O gas. The ammonium conversion to N2O gas significantly decrease to 4.5% at low HRT of .05 day..

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2006.04a
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• pp.119-122
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• 2006

In both untreated and conventionally stabilized swine manures antibiotic resistant (AR) microorganisms, Staphylococcus-like and Salmonella-like microorganisms were detected. Also pathogens with MAR phynotype were detected. Presence of such microorganisms suggest high level of pathogen-related health risk to farmers who may be in direct contact with the manure and its conventionally stabilized product In contrast the autothermal thermophilic aerobic digestion (ATAD) treatment have efficiently reduced AR and pathogenicity from the swine manure. When soil was fertilized using swine manure and its stabilized products, despite no detection of MAR-exhibiting pathogen-like microorganisms in fertilized soil, potential pathogen-related health risk could not be ruled out from the fertilized soil since the organic fertilization led to increase in AR and pathogenicity in the soil microbial communities. As conclusion, this microbiological study demonstrated that an ATAD process is applicable in control of pathogen-related health risk in livestock manure.

• 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.

• Journal of Korea Society of Waste Management
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.140-147
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• 2017

This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of physical characteristics. Twelve specific odorous compounds and various sources of bacteria were tested via treatment of food waste using an ultra-thermophilic aerobic composting process. Food waste was mixed with seed material and operated for 47 days. During composting, the temperature was maintained at $80-90^{\circ}C$. The variations in $O_2$, $CO_2$ and $NH_3$ production suggested typical microorganism-driven organic decomposition patterns. After composting, the concentrations of 12 specific odorous compounds other than ammonia did not exceed the allowable exhaust limits for odor. After composting, thermophiles represented 50% of all bacteria. After composting, the percentage of thermophile bacterial increased by 15%. Therefore, both stable composting operation and economic benefit can be expected when an ultra-thermophilic composting process is applied to food waste.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.497-505
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• 2005

Domestic Sewage Treatment Plants are mostly based on biological treatment, in which large amounts of excess sludge are generated and occupy about 40 ~ 60% of the total sewage treatment costs. Several methods for sludge treatment has been so far reported as upgrading biodegradation of sludge; heat treatment, chemical treatment, including thermo-alkali and ozone, mechanical treatment including ultrasonic pulverization. But, it has a limitation in case of reducing the amount of excess sludge which are already producted. In this study, application of excess sludge reduction process using thermophilic aerobic bacteria for activated sludge was examined. The research was carried out two different stage. one for a biological wastewater treatment and the other for a thermophilic aerobic solubilization of the waste sludge. A portion of excess sludge from the wastewater treatment step was into the thermophilic aerobic sludge solubilization reactor, in which the injected sludge was solubilized by thermophilic aerobic bacteria. The solubilized sludge was returned to the aeration tank in the wastewater treatment step for its further degradation. Sludge solubilization reactor was operated at $63{\pm}2^{\circ}C$ with hydraulic retention time(HRT) of 1.5 ~ 1.7 day. Control group was operated with activated sludge process(AS) and experiment group was operated with three conditions(RUN 1, RUN 2, RUN3). RUN 1 was operated with AS without sludge solubilization reactor. RUN 2 were operated with AS with sludge solubilization reactor to examine correlation between sludge circulation ratio and sludge reduction ratio by setting up sludge circulation ratio to 3. RUN 3 was operated with sludge circulation ratio of 3 and MLSS concentration of 1,700~2,000mg/L to examine optimum operation condition. The quantity of excess sludge production was reduced sharply and in operation of RUN 3, sludge The quantity of excess sludge production was reduced sharply and in operation of RUN 3, sludge solubilization ratio and sludge reduction ratio were 53. 7%, 95.2% respectively. After steady state operation, average concentration of TBOD, SBOD, $TCOD_{Cr}$, $SCOD_{Cr}$, TSS, VSS, T-N, T-P of effluent were 4.5, 1.7, 27 .8, 13.8, 8.1, 6.2, 15.1, 1.8mg/L in the control group and were 5.6, 2.0, 28.6, 19.1, 9.7, 7.2, 16.1, 2.0mg/L in the experimental group respectively. They were appropriate to effluent standard of Sewage Treatment Plants.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.11 no.11
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• pp.27-36
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• 2010

This study was conducted to evaluate physicochemical parameters; temperature, pH, C/N ratio, water content, organic contents and volume in a pilot-scale(capacity : $100m^3$) ultra thermophilic aerobic composting. There were three types input: municipal wasted sludge, livestock manure and slurry, and food waste produced in Jung-Eb city. Each target material was carried out by the first fermentation(organic waste + seed culture) and the second one(organic waste + seed culture + recycle compost), respectively. During composting, only with supply of air and mixing, the temperature increased $90{\sim}105^{\circ}C$ after every mixing in both periods. The changes of pH, $O_2$, $CO_2$ and $NH_3$ represented typical organic decomposition pattern by microorganisms. Also, all other physicochemical parameters of ultra thermophilic aerobic composting process showed similar or better performance than these of general aerobic composting. Heavy metal concentration of fermented compost adapted to compost fertilizer regulation standard in the heavy metal and hazardous analysis.