• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.143-164
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• 2008

Concern about perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) is growing nationally as well as globally. PFCs could be considered emerging POPs due to their environmentally persistent, bioaccumulative, and potentially harmful properties. Moreover. perfluoroalkylates (PFAs) such as PFOS and PFOA are reported to experience long-range transport (LRT) to the Arctic in spite of their low volatility and strong solubility. The possible pathways contributing to LRT have been proposed but are still in debate in combination with unclear source definition and uncertain physico-chemical properties. The environmental fate of PFCs is more complicated because of the presence of precursors that are degraded to PFAs and are extremely different from their daughters, PFAs. in physico-chemical properties. To what extent and through what pathways are human and wildlife exposed is determined by the environmental fate and distribution of PFCs. To define uncertainties in fate and distribution thus is critical to prevent erroneous policy and/or determination related with exposure and risk reduction. This article aimed to review controversy and/or uncertain issues for the environmental fate and distribution of PFCs and to prospect research topics necessary to dissolve uncertainties.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.69-80
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• 1993

Environmental hazards of a chemical could be assessed by two different approaches : toxicity test and assessment of exposure potentials to human and environmental organisms. For the prediction of environmental fate of chemicals three available computer programs were compared each other and were verified. The results obtained by using these computer programs, PCHEM, EXAMS, and E4CHEM were summarized as follows. The estimated octanol/water partition coefficients by PCHEM were similar to the experimental values in the literature. But the other factors, water solubility and vapor pressure were different from the data in the literature. The simulation results of selected compounds by EXAMS showed similar tendency to the literature results of model field environment. Therefore, this computer program could be utilized to predict the environmental fate of chemicals. E4CHEM program is very simple and this program could predict the ultimate environmental fate of stable chemicals by input of two or three parameters. However, the validity should further be verified in the future field study using more compounds. It is suggested that these approaches could be fully utilized by understanding their limitations to predict the environmental fate of new chemicals under development, to screen the potential environmental pollutants among chemicals already-in use, and to devise measures to minimize the hazards to the environment.

• Proceedings of the Korea Environmental Mutagen Society Conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.197-197
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• 2002

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.19 no.4 s.65
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• pp.35-41
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• 2005

There has been increasing offshore oil exploration, drilling, and production activities, as well as a huge amount of petroleum being transported by tankers and pipelines through the ocean and costal environment. Assessment must be made of the potential risk of damage resulting from the exploration, development and transportation activities. This is achieved through predictive impact evaluations of the fate of hypothetical or real oil spills. VVhen an oil spill occurs, planning and execution of cleanup measures also require the capability to forecast the short-term and long-term behavior of the spilled oil. A great amount of effort has been spent by government agencies, oil industries, and researchers over the past decade to develop more realistic models for oil spills. Numerous oil spill models have been developed and applied, most of which attempt to predict the oil spill fate and behavior. For an actual contingency planning, the oil fate and behavior model should be combined with an oil spill incident model, an environmental impact and risk model and a contingency planning model. The purpose of this review study is to give an overview of existing oil spill models that deal with the physical, chemical, biological, and socia-economical aspects of the incident, fate, and environmental impact of oil spills. After reviewing the existing models, future research needs are suggested. In the study, available oil spill models are separated into oil spill incident, oil spill fate and behavior, environmental impact and risk, and contingency planning models. The processes of the oil spill fate and behavior are reviewed in detail and the characteristics of existing oil spill fate and behavior models are examined and classified so that an ideal model may be identified. Finally, future research needs are discussed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Toxicology Conference
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• 2002.11b
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• pp.197-197
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• 2002

In terms of the risk assessment, qualitative and quantitative informations are needed to estimate the exposures of environmental pollutants, which may create risks, and those are the information according to the changes caused by the movement of substances from the pollutant and duration.(omitted)

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.29-37
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• 2022

To verify the fate and transport of engineered nanoparticles (ENP), it is essential to understand its interactions with organic matter. Previous research has shown that dissolved organic matter (DOM) can increase particle stability through steric repulsion. However, the majority of the research has been focused on model organic matter such as humic or fulvic acids, lacking the understanding of organic matter found in field conditions. In the current study, organic matter was sampled from wastewater treatment plants to verify the stability of engineered nanoparticles (ENP) under field conditions. To understand how different types of organic matter may affect the fate of ENP, wastewater was sampled and separated based on their size; as small organic particular matter (SOPM) and large organic particular matter (LOPM), and dissolved organic matter (DOM). Each size fraction of organic matter was tested to verify their effects on nano-zinc oxide (nZnO) and nano-titanium oxide (nTiO₂) stability. For DOM, critical coagulation concentration (CCC) experiments were conducted, while sorption experiments were conducted for organic particulates. Results showed that under field conditions, the surface charge of the particles did not influence the stability. On the contrary, surface charge of the particles influenced the amount of sorption onto particulate forms of organic matter. Results of the current research show how the size of organic matter influences the fate and transport of different ENPs under field conditions.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.53-60
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• 2009

The main objective was to develop and assess a dynamic fate and transport model for lead in air, soil, sediment, water and vegetation. Daejeon was chosen as the study area for its relatively high contamination and emission levels. The model was assessed by comparing model predictions with measured concentrations in multi-media and atmospheric deposition flux. Given a lead concentration in air, the model could predict the concentrations in water and soil within a factor of five. Sensitivity analysis indicated that effective compartment volumes, rain intensity, scavenging ratio, run off, and foliar uptake were critical to accurate model prediction. Important implications include that restriction of air emission may be necessary in the future to protect the soil quality objective as the contamination level in soil is predicted to steadily increase at the present emission level and that direct discharge of lead into the water body was insignificant as compared to atmospheric deposition fluxes. The results strongly indicated that atmospheric emission governs the quality of the whole environment. Use of the model developed in this study would provide quantitative and integrated understanding of the cross-media characteristics and assessment of the relationships of the contamination levels among the multi-media environment.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Fisheries Technology Conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.223-224
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• 2003

Information on the fate of the added nutrients is essential for the assessment of the food utilization, pond fertility, water quality and processes in the sediment (Boyd, 1985). Also, they are useful for qualifying environmental impacts of aquaculture and for environmental management. The purpose of this experiment was to assess the fate of nitrogen and organic matter entering aquaculture ponds and the relative importance of the different resources. (omitted)

• Proceedings of the Korea Committee for Ocean Resources and Engineering Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.45-50
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• 2002

This study presents a modeling method to predict fate of resuspended sediment in the development of deep-sea mineral resources. Resuspended deep-sea sediment during the development is considered a major environmental problem. In order to quantitatively analyze the resuspended sediment in the water column, particle size distribution (PSD) is considered an important factor. The model developed here includes PSD and coagulation process, as well as sedimentation process. Using the model, basic simulation was performed under representative environmental setting. The simulation showed the dynamics of change of particle size distribution for 50 m depth of water column up to 10 days of simulation time. Coagulation seemed an important factor in the fate of resuspended deep-sea sediment.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2019

This study presents a technical perspective to the fate characteristics of phenol and m-cresol, which represent some of the most common organic chemicals found in chemical spill accidents, and likely to persist in soil and groundwater due to their highly stable physicochemical properties. Some cases of domestic and foreign chemical accidents linked to phenol and m-cresol contamination were compiled. Due to their low organic carbon-water partitioning coefficient (Koc), phenol and m-cresol tend to migrate into groundwater and remained as dissolved phase. On the other hands, phenol and m-cresol can be readily decomposed by microbes in soil and groundwater under appropriate conditions. Therefore, the fate characteristics of these chemicals are highly contingent on environmental conditions. Thus, if a great quantity of leakage is occurred by chemical accidents, the up-to-date and correct information about fate characteristics taking into account both the chemical and environmental conditions is greatly needed to minimized the potential hazards from these chemicals.