• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.213-217
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• 2009

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have been known as a new alternative energy conversion technology for treating wastewater and producing electricity simultaneously. A MFC converts the chemical energy of the organic compounds to electrical energy through microbial catalysis at the anode under anaerobic conditions. To examine the performance of MFC, in this work, the characteristics of the efficiency of wastewater treatment and generation of electricity was evaluated for sewage. When acetate as a carbon source was added into the sewage, the removal efficiency of COD was increased from 75.7% to 88.2% and the voltage was increased significantly from 0.22 V to 0.4 V. The influence of distance between anode and cathode was examined and the effect of the surface area of anode was investigated under the various external resistances. It was found that the maximum power density was $610mW/m^2$ and power generation was effective when the distance between the electrodes was shorter and the surface area of the anode was smaller.

• Journal of Mushroom
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.187-193
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• 2013

A galactose fermentation bacterium producing lactose from red seaweed, which was known well to compromise the galactose as main reducing sugar, was isolated from button mushroom bed in Buyeo-Gun, Chungchugnamdo province. The lactic acid bacteria MONGB-2 was identified as Lactobacillus paracasei subsp. tolerans by analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequence. When the production of lactic acid and acetic acid by L. paracasei MONGB-2 was investigated by HPLC analysis with various carbohydrates, the strain MONGB-2 efficiently convert the glucose and galactose to lactic acid with the yield of 18.86 g/L and 18.23 g/L, respectively and the ratio of lactic acid to total organic acids was 1.0 and 0.91 g/g for both substrates. However, in the case of acetic acid fermentation, other carbohydrates besides galactose and red seaweed hydrolysate could not be totally utilized as carbon sources for acetic acid production by the strain. The lactic acid production from glucose and galactose in the fermentation time courses was gradually enhanced upto 60 h fermentation and the maximal concentration reached to be 16-18 g/L from both substrates after 48 h of fermentation. The initial concentration of glucose and galactose were completely consumed within 36 h of fermentation, of which the growth of cell also was maximum level. In addition, the bioconversion of lactic acid from the red seaweed hydrolysate by L. paracasei MONGB-2 appeared to be about 20% levels of the initial substrates concentration and this results were entirely lower than those of galactose and glucose showed about 60% of conversion. The apparent results showed that L. paracasei MONGB-2 could produce the lactic acid with glucose as well as galactose by the homofermentation through EMP pathway.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.236-242
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• 2008

Invertase (${\beta}$-D-fructofuranosidase; EC 3.2.1.26) catalyzes the conversion of sucrose into glucose and fructose and is involved in an array of important processes, including phloem unloading, carbon partitioning, the response to pathogens, and the control of cell differentiation and development. Its importance may have caused the invertases to evolve into a multigene family whose members are regulated by a variety of different mechanisms, such as pH, sucrose levels, and inhibitor proteins. Although putative invertase inhibitors in the Arabidopsis genome are easy to locate, few studies have been conducted to elucidate their individual functions in vivo in plant growth and development because of their high redundancy. In this study we assessed the functional role of the putative invertase inhibitors in Arabidopsis by generating transgenic plants harboring a putative invertase inhibitor gene under the control of the CaMV35S promoter. A transgenic plant that expressed high levels of the putative invertase inhibitor transcript when grown under normal conditions was chosen for the current study. To our surprise, the stability of the invertase inhibitor transcripts was shown to be down-regulated by the phytohormone ABA (abscisic acid). It is well established that ABA enhances invertase activity in vivo but the underlying mechanisms are still poorly understood. Our results thus suggest that one way ABA regulates invertase activity is by down-regulating its inhibitor.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.549-549
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• 2012

Early detection of cancer biomarkers in the blood is of vital importance for reducing the mortality and morbidity in a number of cancers. From this point of view, immunosensors based on nanowire (NW) and carbon nanotube (CNT) field-effect transistors (FETs) that allow the ultra-sensitive, highly specific, and label-free electrical detection of biomarkers received much attention. Nevertheless 1D nano-FET biosensors showed high performance, several challenges remain to be resolved for the uncomplicated, reproducible, low-cost and high-throughput nanofabrication. Recently, two-dimensional (2D) graphene and reduced GO (RGO) nanosheets or films find widespread applications such as clean energy storage and conversion devices, optical detector, field-effect transistors, electromechanical resonators, and chemical & biological sensors. In particular, the graphene- and RGO-FETs devices are very promising for sensing applications because of advantages including large detection area, low noise level in solution, ease of fabrication, and the high sensitivity to ions and biomolecules comparable to 1D nano-FETs. Even though a limited number of biosensor applications including chemical vapor deposition (CVD) grown graphene film for DNA detection, single-layer graphene for protein detection and single-layer graphene or solution-processed RGO film for cell monitoring have been reported, development of facile fabrication methods and full understanding of sensing mechanism are still lacking. Furthermore, there have been no reports on demonstration of ultrasensitive electrical detection of a cancer biomarker using the graphene- or RGO-FET. Here we describe scalable and facile fabrication of reduced graphene oxide FET (RGO-FET) with the capability of label-free, ultrasensitive electrical detection of a cancer biomarker, prostate specific antigen/${\alpha}$ 1-antichymotrypsin (PSA-ACT) complex, in which the ultrathin RGO channel was formed by a uniform self-assembly of two-dimensional RGO nanosheets, and also we will discuss about the immunosensing mechanism.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.24-32
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• 2015

National and international regulations on the exhaust gases of diesel engines are being strengthened, and a study of the combutsion engine and the post-porcessing system are in progress as a variety of ways. There are many techniques for the removal of nitrogen oxide like HC-SCR, LNT, Urea-SCR. And the technical development on the Urea-SCR owing to high conversion efficiency and fuel economy characteristics has being processed. This study investigated the physical/chemical properties of urea according to the change of the urea content, and were analysed the characteristic of exhaust gas. According to the increase of urea content, the contests of biuret aldehyde, phosphate content was increased and the changes of emission quantity of carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and particulate matter in the exhaust gas was very slight. The emission quantity of NOx was decreased in accordance with increasing the urea content and it was shown to be more than 80 % in the urea solution having more than 30 wt%.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.683-689
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• 2010

Reforming of methane with carbon dioxide has been carried out using a bipolar pulse driven elongated arc reactor operating at atmospheric pressure and non-equilibrium regime. This plasma reactor is driven by two kinds of power supply, characterized by different voltage-current characteristics under the same operating power and frequency. Varying the $CO_2/CH_4$ ratio and the discharge power, the conversion rate, yield, and reforming efficiency for the two power supplies are investigated in conjunction with the static and dynamic behaviors of voltage and current. It is found that not only the values of voltage and current but also their shapes give an influence on the reforming performances. Finally, a better electrical operation regime for the efficient plasma reforming is proposed based on the relationship between the voltage-current characteristics and the reforming performance.

• Journal of Korean Society for Geospatial Information Science
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.77-87
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• 2012

Discussion on North Korea as UN-REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in developing countries) project target continues with a view to preventing deforestation and to securing CER(certified emission reduction) for South Korea. However, due to North Korea's political shutdown, it is hard to acquire information required for the REDD project registration. This research intends to acquire objective data using satellite images in the Mt. Geumgang. More than 20% of entire forested area were disappeared during the past two decades mainly due to conversion into agricultural farming land. Further, it is expected that persistent deforestation will go on. The reduction potential of the carbon emission is estimated as approximately 617,000 tCO2/year~663.000 tCO2/year. Thus, Mt. Geumgang is considered as realistic REDD target, which is attractive to South Korea, given that the obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emission is likely to be imposed upon the country. Further, political and social benefits due to reduced military conflict make Mt. Geumgang as UN-REDD project target invaluable.

• Mycobiology
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.187-193
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• 2011

Botryosphaeran, a water-soluble exopolysaccharide of the ${\beta}-(1{\rightarrow}3;1{\rightarrow}6)$-D-glucan type that has been isolated from the culture medium of Botryosphaeria rhodina MAMB-05 grown in submerged fermentation using glucose as the sole carbon source, was previously demonstrated to be non-genotoxic in peripheral blood and bone marrow, and exhibited strong anticlastogenic activity. In the present study, the effects of botryosphaeran were investigated in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats as well as in high-fat diet-fed hyperlipidemic Wistar rats. The plasma glucose level was reduced by 52% in the diabetic group of rats after administration of 12 mg botryosphaeran/kg body weight of the rats (b.w.)/day by gavage over 15 days. A reduction in the median ration intake was accompanied by an increase in the median body weight gain, as well as the efficiency of food conversion. These results demonstrate that botryosphaeran has protective effects by reducing the symptoms of cachexia in Diabetes mellitus. Botryosphaeran administered by gavage at a concentration of 12 mg botryosphaeran/kg b.w./day over 15 days also reduced the plasma levels of total cholesterol and low density lipoprotein-cholesterol by 18% and 27%, respectively, in hyperlipidemic rats. Based on these findings, we conclude that botryosphaeran possesses hypoglycemic and hypocholesterolemic properties in conditions of diabetes mellitus and hyperlipidemia, respectively, and may be used as an oral anti-diabetic agent.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.58.2-58.2
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• 2012

Heavy hydrocarbon reforming is a core technology for "Dirty energy smart". Heavy hydrocarbons are components of fossil fuels, biomass, coke oven gas and etc. Heavy hydrocarbon reforming converts the fuels into $H_2$-rich syngas. And then $H_2$-rich syngas is used for the production of electricity, synthetic fuels and petrochemicals. Energy can be used efficiently and obtained from various sources by using $H_2$-rich syngas from heavy hydrocarbon reforming. Especially, the key point of "Dirty energy smart" is using "dirty fuel" which is wasted in an inefficient way. New energy conversion laboratory of KAIST has been researched diesel reforming for solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) as a part of "Dirty energy smart". Diesel is heavy hydrocarbon fuels which has higher carbon number than natural gas, kerosene and gasoline. Diesel reforming has difficulties due to the evaporation of fuels and coke formation. Nevertheless, diesel reforming technology is directly applied to "Dirty fuel" because diesel has the similar chemical properties with "Dirty fuel". On the other hand, SOFC has advantages on high efficiency and wasted heat recovery. Nippon oil Co. of Japan recently commercializes 700We class SOFC system using city gas. Considering the market situation, the development of diesel reformer has a great ripple effect. SOFC system can be applied to auxiliary power unit and distributed power generation. In addition, "Dirty energy smart" can be realized by applying diesel reforming technology to "Dirty fuel". As well as material developments, multidirectional approaches are required to reform heavy hydrocarbon fuels and use $H_2$-rich gas in SOFC. Gd doped ceria (CGO, $Ce_{1-x}Gd_xO_{2-y}$) has been researched for not only electrolyte materials but also catalysts supports. In addition, catalysts infiltrated electrode over porous $La_{0.8}Sr_{0.2}Ga_{0.8}Mg_{0.2}O_3-{\delta}$ and catalyst deposition at three phase boundary are being investigated to improve the performance of SOFC. On the other hand, nozzle for diesel atomization and post-reforming for light-hydrocarbons removal are examples of solving material problems in multidirectional approaches. Likewise, multidirectional approaches are necessary to realize "Dirty energy smart" like reforming "Dirty fuel" for SOFC.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.473-482
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• 2013

The desulfurization ability of Sphingomonas subarctica T7b was evaluated using resting and immobilized cells with dibenzothiophene (DBT), alkyl DBTs, and commercial light gas oil (LGO) as the substrates. The resting cells of S. subarctica T7b degraded 239.2 mg of the initial 250 mg of DBT/l (1.36 mM) within 24 h at $27^{\circ}C$, while 127.5 mg of 2-hydroxybiphenyl (2-HBP)/l (0.75 mM) was formed, representing a 55% conversion of the DBT. The DBT desulfurization activity was significantly affected by the aqueous-to-oil phase ratio. In addition, the resting cells of S. subarctica T7b were able to desulfurize alkyl DBTs with long alkyl chains, although the desulfurization rate decreased with an increase in the total carbon number of the alkylated DBTs. LGO with a total sulfur content of 280 mg/l was desulfurized to 152 mg/l after 24 h of reaction. Cells immobilized by entrapment with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) exhibited a high DBT desulfurization activity, including repeated use for more than 8 batch cycles without loss of biodesulfurization activity. The stability of the immobilized cells was better than that of the resting cells at different initial pHs, higher temperatures, and for DBT biodesulfurization in successive degradation cycles. The immobilized cells were also easily separated from the oil and water phases, giving this method great potential for oil biodesulfurization.