• Resources Recycling
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.69-76
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• 2024

In an effort to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality, countries around the world are aiming to phase out coal-fired power plants. Due to various reasons, electricity production through coal-fired power generation and sulfur oxide (SOx) emissions are expected to continue in the future. In the South Korea, sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO₃) and lime materials are used to treat SOx, and most of the sodium bicarbonate is imported. Therefore, this research was conducted to replace sodium bicarbonate by improving the physical properties of lime materials using domestic limestone. Limestone was heat-treated through a box-type electric furnace and a vertical electric furnace. Due to the structural characteristics of the vertical electric furnace, a lime material(quicklime) was possible to improve the physical properties like a specific surface area and a pore volume. Then, they were reached to 22.33 m²/g specific area and 0.14 cc/g pore volume.

• Clean Technology
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.94-104
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• 2024

Remanufacturing re-commercializes a used product to achieve an equal or higher performance level than the original product by disassembling, cleaning, inspecting, repairing, reconditioning, and reassembling the used product. The remanufacturing industry is a key industry necessary to realize carbon neutrality by 2050. This study uses life cycle assessment to analyze the resource reduction and greenhouse gas reduction effects with and without considering the avoided effect for an injector, which is an automobile part that is actively being remanufactured. The results of this study showed that the resource reduction effect and greenhouse gas reduction effect induced by injector remanufacturing were reduced by 95.30% and 93.88%, respectively, based on one unit without considering the avoided effect. However, when considering the avoided effect, which in this case is the environmental impact of not disposing of the used injector and not having to use natural resources to manufacture a new injector because the used injector was reused during remanufacturing, the resource reduction effect and greenhouse gas reduction effect were 190.91% and 188.33%, respectively. The results of this study are expected to be used in the future to evaluate the amount of environmental impact reduction while considering the avoided effect during remanufacturing and to help develop research methodology for remanufacturing.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.142-156
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• 2024

The transition to electric vehicles is a crucial step toward achieving carbon neutrality in the transportation sector. Adequate charging infrastructure at residential locations is essential. In South Korea, the predominant form of housing is multifamily dwellings, necessitating the provision of public charging stations for numerous residents. Although the government mandates the availability of charging facilities and designated parking areas for electric vehicles, it bases the supply of charging stations solely on the number of parking spaces. Slow chargers, mainly 3.5kW charging outlets and 7kW slow chargers, are commonly used. While the former is advantageous for installation and use, its slower charging speed necessitates the coexistence of both types of chargers. This study presents an optimization model that allocates chargers capable of meeting charging demands based on daily driving distances. Furthermore, using the metaheuristic algorithm Tabu Search, this model satisfies the optimization requirements and minimizes the costs associated with charger supply and usage. To conduct a case study, data from personal travel surveys were used to estimate the driving distances, and a hypothetical charging scenario and environment were set up to determine the optimal supply of 22 units of 3.5kW charging outlets for the charging demands of 100 BEVs.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.38-52
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• 2024

Digital transformation industry contributes to the improvement of productivity in overall industrial production, the smart green industry for carbon neutrality and sustainable growth is growing as a future industry. The purpose of this paper is to explore the status and role of the industry in the future industry innovation ecosystem through the analysis of the growth drivers and location pattern changes of the smart green industry. The industry is on the rise in both metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas, and the growth of the industry can be seen in non-metropolitan and non-urban areas. In particular, due to the smart green industrial complex pilot project, the creation of Gwangju Jeonnam Innovation City, and the promotion of new and renewable energy policies, the emergence of core aggregation areas (HH type) in the coastal areas of Honam and Chungcheongnam-do, and the formation of isolated centers (HL type) in the Gyeongsang region, new and renewable energy production companies are being accumulated in non-metropolitan areas. Therefore, the smart green industry is expected to promote the formation of various specialized spokes in non-urban areas in the future industrial innovation ecosystem that forms a multipolar hub-spoke network structure, where policy factors are the triggers for growth.

• Clean Technology
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.218-226
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• 2022

As a result of the recent social transformation towards a hydrogen economy and carbon-neutrality, the demands for hydrogen energy have been increasing rapidly worldwide. As such, eco-friendly hydrogen production technologies that do not produce carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions are being focused on. Among them, ammonia (NH₃) is an economical hydrogen carrier that can easily produce hydrogen (H₂). In this study, Ru/Al₂O₃ catalyst coated onmetallic monolith for hydrogen production from ammonia was prepared by a dip-coating method using a catalyst slurry mixture composed of Ru/Al₂O₃ catalyst, inorganic binder (alumina sol) and organic binder (methyl cellulose). At the optimized 1:1:0.1 weight ratio of catalyst/inorganic binder/organic binder, the amount of catalyst coated on the metallic monolith after one cycle coating was about 61.6 g L^-1. The uniform thickness (about 42 ㎛) and crystal structure of the catalyst coated on the metallic monolith surface were confirmed through scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. Also, a numerical optimization regression equation for NH3 conversion according to the independent variables of reaction temperature (400-600 ℃) and gas hourly space velocity (1,000-5,000 h^-1) was calculated by response surface methodology (RSM). This model indicated a determination coefficient (R²) of 0.991 and had statistically significant predictors. This regression model could contribute to the commercial process design of hydrogen production by ammonia decomposition.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.91-106
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• 2022

Cryptocurrency, stood out the sharp cost rising of Bitcoin has been spotlighted by means of the solution for stagflation because it is decentralized with an existing currency differently. Especially getting into 4th industrial revolution, technologies using block chain and internet of things have been used in the many fields, and the power of influence is also widespread. Nevertheless like a remark of Elon Musk of Tesla CEO, the problems of environmental contamination for cryptocurrency have been pointed out continuously and the most representative of them is an enormous electric usage as the use of fossil fuels. Also the amount generated of carbon dioxide result in the acceleration of global warming mainly based on the climate changes of earth if the existing mining method is continued. On the other hand, review researches have been conducted restrictively as the connection with environmental contamination as the mining of cryptocurrency. In this study, it intended to review problems for environmental contamination as the diversification of ecological system of cryptocurrency concretely. Upon investigation existing prior documents on the putting recent data first, the mining of cryptocurrency has affected on the environmental contamination conflicting with carbon neutrality as increasement of the electric usage and electronic wastes. And POS method without the mining process appeared, but it had a demerit collapsing a decentralization and then we met turning point on appearing various environmental-friendly cryptocurrency. Finally the appearance of cryptocurrency using new renewable energy acted on the opportunity of the usage maximization of energy storage apparatus and the birth of national government intervention. Based on these results, we mention clearly that hereafter cryptocurrency will regress if not go abreast the value of currency as well as environmental approach.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.52-58
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• 2023

With the increasing awareness of the importance of carbon neutrality in response to global climate change, the utilization of hydrogen as a carbon-free fuel source is also growing. Hydrogen is commonly used in fuel cells (FC), but it can also be utilized in internal combustion engines (ICE) that are based on combustion. Particularly, ICEs that already have established infrastructure for production and supply can greatly contribute to the expansion of hydrogen energy utilization when it becomes difficult to rely solely on fuel cells or expand their infrastructure. However, a disadvantage of utilizing hydrogen through combustion is the potential generation of nitrogen oxides (NOx), which are harmful emissions formed when nitrogen in the air reacts with oxygen at high temperatures. In particular, for the EURO-7 exhaust regulation, which includes cold start operation, efforts to reduce exhaust emissions during the warm-up process are required. Therefore, in this study, the characteristics of nitrogen oxides and fuel consumption were investigated during the warm-up process of cooling water from room temperature to 88℃ using a 2-liter direct injection spark ignition (SI) engine fueled with hydrogen. One advantage of hydrogen, compared to conventional fuels like gasoline, natural gas, and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), is its wide flammable range, which allows for sparser control of the excessive air ratio. In this study, the excessive air ratio was varied as 1.6/1.8/2.0 during the warm-up process, and the results were analyzed. The experimental results show that as the excessive air ratio becomes sparser during warm-up, the emission of nitrogen oxides per unit time decreases, and the thermal efficiency relatively increases. However, as the time required to reach the final temperature becomes longer, the cumulative emissions and fuel consumption may worsen.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.79-105
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• 2023

Due to unprecedented extreme weather events such as global warming and climate change, many parts of the world suffer from severe pain, and economic losses are also snowballing. In order to address these problems, 'The Paris Agreement' was signed in 2016, and an intergovernmental consultative body was formed to keep the average temperature rise of the Earth below 1.5℃. Korea also declared 'Carbon Neutrality in 2050' to prevent climate catastrophe. In particular, it was found that the increase in temperature caused by greenhouse gas emissions hurts the environment and society as a whole, as well as the export-dependent economy of Korea. In addition, as the diversification of transportation types is accelerating, the change in means of choice is also increasing. As the development paradigm in the low-growth era changes to urban regeneration, interest in idle railway sites is rising due to reduced demand for routes, improvement of alignment, and relocation of urban railways. Meanwhile, it is possible to partially achieve the solar power generation goal of 'Renewable Energy 3020' by utilizing already developed but idle railway sites and take advantage of being free from environmental damage and resident acceptance issues surrounding the location; but the actual use and plan for these solar power facilities are still lacking. Therefore, in this study, using the big data provided by the Korea National Railway and the Renewable Energy Cloud Platform, we develop an algorithm to discover and analyze suitable idle sites where solar power generation facilities can be installed and identify potentially applicable areas considering conditions desired by users. By searching and deriving these idle but relevant sites, it is intended to devise a plan to save enormous costs for facilities or expansion in the early stages of development. This study uses various cluster analyses to develop an optimal algorithm that can derive solar power plant locations on idle railway sites and, as a result, suggests 202 'actively recommended areas.' These results would help decision-makers make rational decisions from the viewpoint of simultaneously considering the economy and the environment.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.29-63
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to analyze the process of changes in regional science and technology policies in Korea and to seek future development directions. In Korea, regional science and technology policies have been implemented since the introduction of the local autonomy system. Since then, it has been implemented in earnest with the establishment of a central government-level plan. The regional science and technology policies have been developed to this day by interacting with national science and technology policies and regional development policies. Nevertheless, due to the path dependence and lock-in effect in the accumulated process, the regional science and technology policies are still subordinate to central government policies. Thus, the establishment of an independent ecosystem for local science and technology is still insufficient. Furthermore, the gap between regions is deepening, such as the growing of aging population, population decline due to low birth rates, job losses due to the recession of local key industry, and the concentration of the youth population in the metropolitan area. The transformation path such as digital transformation and carbon neutrality paradigm is expected to further widen regional disparities. In order to address a comprehensive problem, the implementing system of regional science and technology policies need to be newly established. A framework for reinvention of regional science and technology policy needed in the era of grand societal challenges have to be developed.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.224-238
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• 2022

North Korea has actively participated in the international community related to environmental agreements. It has proposed various environmental policies internally since the Kim Jong-un regime. In particular, it emphasizes activities related to climate change response, the Sustainable Development Goals, and the conservation of ecosystems including forests and wetlands. In this study, a new security cooperation plan was proposed with an understanding of the climate crisis and environmental regime as a starting point. To this end, trends and recent activities for climate-environment cooperation in the international community and on the Korean Peninsula were analyzed. In addition, North Korea's conditions for cooperation on the Korean Peninsula, technology demand, and the projected future environment of the Korean Peninsula were dealt with. Ultimately, through advice of experts, we were able to discover cooperation agendas by sector and propose short-term and long-term environmental cooperation strategies for the Korean Peninsula based on them. In this study, conditions and directions for cooperation in fields of climate technology, biological resources, air/weather, water environment, biodiversity, renewable energy, bioenergy, and so on were considered comprehensively. Among 21 cooperation agendas discovered in this study, energy showed the largest number of areas. Renewable energy, forest resources, and environmental and meteorological information stood out as agendas that could be cooperated in the short term. As representative initiatives, joint promotion of 'renewable energy' that could contribute to North Korea's energy demand and carbon neutrality and 'forest cooperation' that could be recognized as a source of disaster reduction and greenhouse gas sinks were suggested.