• Journal of Mushroom
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.69-77
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• 2022

Eco-friendly materials, such as alternative vegan materials using various fungal resources, are being actively researched to reduce environmental pollution and facilitate a healthy lifestyle. The fungal mycelium-based mushroom mycelium mat is one such emerging material. In this study, the commonly used mushroom mycelium culture method was modified to reduce the time required to produce the mycelium mat, lower the possibility of contamination, and improve the properties and quality of the mat. Shortening the period required for the previously used primary bag culture and secondary mat production culture. A culture method in which the bag culture was omitted was attempted using a mycelium mutated by gamma irradiation to the mycelium of Trametes orientalis. In addition, various nutrients were added to the fungal solution to observe the change in physical properties of the fungal mat. High-quality mycelium mats were produced in the experimental group containing 1.5% CaCO₃ in sawdust medium, and the period was also reduced by more than 10 days compared to the existing production method. In the future, for mass producing mycelium mats, additional selection of medium components and optimization of culture conditions are essential.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.615-622
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• 2020

Frangible bullets, which are shredded after impact on a target, reduce the possibility of both ricochet and unexpected injury in shooting training and in mission acts in dams, nuclear power plants, and cultural properties. Reducing the levels of hazardous materials in shooting ranges, such as lead, has become an important agenda for the government and environmental groups. In this study, the shape of a frangible bullet was designed for efficient shredding, and the safety and reliability were confirmed by actual firing under different process conditions. In addition, the physical characteristics, such as compaction pressure, density, and frangibility of each process, were compared by analyzing the microstructure of the sintered frangible bullet. The experiment revealed the smallest fragmentation after impact on the target under the following conditions: Cu-Sn 85:15; sintering temperature, 600℃; sintering time, one hour. Further development of the process conditions and experimental methods will contribute to the performance and environmental improvement of a frangible bullet.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.10 no.7
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• pp.125-133
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• 2009

Wastewater sludge had normally filled up in land before revising the law of waste material management in 2003, which does not permit landfill of organic sludge in Korea. After the law, most sludge has been littered in the ocean up to now. However, due to the London Convention 96 Protocol, littering sludge in the ocean will also be prohibited after 2011. This Protocol makes countries find out new methods to treat wastewater sludge. There is no exception in Korea too. Many researchers have urgently try to find out better ways to treat sludge. One of ways is to make sludge recycle energy and the success of it depends on drying method. Specifically, it really depends how to make sludge dry ecologic friendly and economic efficiently. Therefore, wastewater sludge produced in Youngdong was analyzed to make it energy resources in this study. The sludge was tested to analyze the drying and chemical characteristics of it by irradiating microwave. In the result, it is sure that the sludge has little heavy metals as like as others in country side. High calories, 3370 Kcal, shows that it has good potential to be recycle energy. Moreover, weight deduction of the sludge vs. time shows long S-curve and has same deduction ratio. Specifically, S-curve can be divided by three sections based on the curvature points. There are steady state reduction ratio of weight and approximately 80% of weight duction in the second section. This results can be used to estimate the amount of sludge reduction in the full-scale microwave dryer. Drying capacity of microwave shows approximately 1.0 kg/kw/hr. It makes sure that sludge recycle energy has the potential of economic efficiency too.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.1061-1069
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• 2019

Common reed (Phragmites australis) is widespread in reclaimed land and wetland habitats. Every year, the common reed produces extensive colonies by means of underground rhizomes and ground-surface stolons. From an agricultural point of view, the common reed's large biomass is a good material for supplying organic matter. However, it has not yet been studied in terms of seedling production, transplanting conditions, and decomposition characteristics in reclaimed land. Seeds were harvested from the native common reed in Saemangeum, South Korea, the previous year and stored on an open field. The seeds were sowed in the greenhouse at the beginning of April. Common reed decomposition was studied from June to September, with the use of coarse mesh (5 mm) stem litterbags, on three samping dates and with five replicate packs per sample. These packs were dug in five soil condition (low-salinity topsoil, subsoil, high-salinity topsoil, subsoil, paddy topsoil) to 0.2 m and 0.4 m depth. The highest germination rate of common reed seeds was observed in non-salt solution, but the exhibited germination rate was 70% at 9.38 dS m^-1. The plant height of young reed decreased steadily with increasing salinity, but leaf number did not decrease by 9.38 dS m^-1. The survival rate of the two-year-old reed was 83.3%, which was 35% higher than that of the one-year reed. The transplant success rate was 0% in the no vinyl mulching in the soil, but the first year and second year seedlings survived rates were 63% and 83.3%, respectively, in vinyl mulching. Common reed decomposition rates were faster low salinity than high salinity. All nutrient contents were found to fluctuate significantly with time by soil conditions. We also need to study the growth rate of reed transplanting seedlings by soil moisture contents and the comparison of degradation in common reed tissues.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.51-60
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• 2010

A study on the recovery of cobalt and lithium from Lithium Ion Battery(LIB) scraps has been carried out by a physical treatment - leaching - solvent extraction process. The cathode scraps of LIB in production were used as a material of this experiment. The best condition for recovering cobalt from the anode scraps was acquired in each process. The cathode scraps are dissolved in 2M sulfuric acid solution with hydrogen peroxide at $95^{\circ}C$, 700 rpm. The cobalt is concentrated from the leaching solution by means of a solvent extraction circuit with bis(2-ethylhexyl) phosphoric acid(D2EHPA) and PC88A in kerosene, and then cobalt and lithium are recovered as cobalt hydroxide and lithium carbonate by precipitation technology. The purity of cobalt oxide powder was over 99.98% and the average particle size after milling was about 10 lim. The over all recoveries are over 95% for cobalt and lithium. The pilot test of mechanical separation was carried out for the recovery of cobalt from the scraps. The $Co_3O_4$ powder was made by the heat treatment of $Co(OH)_2$ and the average particle size was about 10 ${\mu}m$ after grinding. The recovery was over 99% for cobalt and lithium each other and the purity of cobalt oxide was over 99.98%.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF PACKAGING SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.149-158
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• 2021

Advances in food packaging play an important role in keeping food manufacturing and food supply safe. Food packaging facilitates the storage, handling, transportation and preservation of food, and also contributes to the minimization of food waste. On the other hand, food packaging materials have high production volumes, short usage times, and accelerate the occurrence of environmental problems related to waste. The circular economy has already been introduced to pursue sustainability through resource conservation and recycling, and to reduce waste and carbon emissions. By activating an eco-friendly economic system that minimizes resource depletion and environmental pollution, reducing, reusing, recycling and redesigning the goals of the circular economy will reduce the impact of food packaging on the environment. This review focused on the safety aspects of recycled food packaging as recycling is currently considered an important means of packaging waste management. Assessing the safety of recycled packaging is very important because recycling can increase the levels of potentially hazardous chemicals in packaging and in the food after they are migrated. Various food packaging materials such as plastic, paper and cardboard, aluminum, steel, and multi-material multi-layers packaging are commonly used, but only the recycling safety of plastic food packaging materials, which is the most used and has a significant increase in post-use problem, is discussed in this review.

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.82-93
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• 2024

Since the cement industry generates more than 60 % of CO₂ during the clinker production process, supplementary cementitious materials are used worldwide to reduce CO₂ efficiently. Mainly used supplementary cementitious materials such as blast furnace slag and fly ash, which are used in various industries including the cement industry, concrete admixtures, and ground solidification materials. However, since their availability is expected to decrease in the future according to the carbon neutrality strategy of each industry, new supplementary cementitious materials should be used to achieve the cement industry's goal for increasing the additive content of Portland cement. Limestone is a material that already has a large amount in the cement industry and has the advantage of high grinding efficiency, so overseas developed countries established Portland limestone cement standards and succeeded in commercialization. This study was an experimental study conducted to evaluate the possibility of utilizing domestic PLC, the effect of fineness and replacement ratio on the physical properties of cement was investigated, and the environmental impact of cement was evaluated by analyzing CO₂ emissions.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.125-138
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• 2023

Most of previous cesium (Cs) sorbents have limitations on the treatment in the large-scale water system having low Cs concentration and high ion strength. In this study, the new Cs sorbent that is eco-friendly and has a high Cs removal efficiency was developed by improving the coal mine drainage treated sludge (hereafter 'CMDS') with the addition of Na and S. The sludge produced through the treatment process for the mine drainage originating from the abandoned coal mine was used as the primary material for developing the new Cs sorbent because of its high Ca and Fe contents. The CMDS was improved by adding Na and S during the heat treatment process (hereafter 'Na-S-CMDS' for the developed sorbent in this study). Laboratory experiments and the sorption model studies were performed to evaluate the Cs sorption capacity and to understand the Cs sorption mechanisms of the Na-S-CMDS. The physicochemical and mineralogical properties of the Na-S-CMDS were also investigated through various analyses, such as XRF, XRD, SEM/EDS, XPS, etc. From results of batch sorption experiments, the Na-S-CMDS showed the fast sorption rate (in equilibrium within few hours) and the very high Cs removal efficiency (> 90.0%) even at the low Cs concentration in solution (< 0.5 mg/L). The experimental results were well fitted to the Langmuir isotherm model, suggesting the mostly monolayer coverage sorption of the Cs on the Na-S-CMDS. The Cs sorption kinetic model studies supported that the Cs sorption tendency of the Na-S-CMDS was similar to the pseudo-second-order model curve and more complicated chemical sorption process could occur rather than the simple physical adsorption. Results of XRF and XRD analyses for the Na-S-CMDS after the Cs sorption showed that the Na content clearly decreased in the Na-S-CMDS and the erdite (NaFeS₂·2(H₂O)) was disappeared, suggesting that the active ion exchange between Na⁺ and Cs⁺ occurred on the Na-S-CMDS during the Cs sorption process. From results of the XPS analysis, the strong interaction between Cs and S in Na-S-CMDS was investigated and the high Cs sorption capacity was resulted from the binding between Cs and S (or S-complex). Results from this study supported that the Na-S-CMDS has an outstanding potential to remove the Cs from radioactive contaminated water systems such as seawater and groundwater, which have high ion strength but low Cs concentration.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.395-402
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• 2014

BACKGROUND: Azadirachta indica Extract(AIE) containing azadirachtin as active ingredient have been used worldwide as environment-friendly organic material having pest control properties. However, the extracts prepared with different solvent and from different plant site is very diverse and have different toxicity. METHODS AND RESULTS: In this study, the four week repeated oral dose toxicity test of aqueous AIE in Sprague-Dawley rats was carried out to investigate the toxic effect of liver, main toxicity target organ of AIE. The male and female rats were divided into 4 groups, respectively; control(0 g/Kg bw), low-dose group(0.5 g/Kg bw), middle-dose(1.0 g/Kg bw) and high-dose group(2.0 g/Kg bw). As a results, relative liver weight increased with dose-dependent of AIE(p<0.05). Serum LDH in all AIE-treated groups were significantly lower than the control in male rats(p<0.05). However, serum GOT and GPT were significantly increased in all male AIE-treated groups in male rats(p<0.05) and, in particular, increase of serum GPT in dose-dependent manner raise the possibility of liver damage. Even through serum GLU was increased significantly in high-dose group in male rats compared to control, there were no significant differences of urinary GLU among all groups(p<0.05). In addition, histopathological examination of the liver did not reveal any lesions in all AIE-treated groups. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, 4 weeks of the repeated oral administration of AIE 2.0 g/Kg to rats has resulted no toxic response in liver. Therefore, AIE was no indicated to have any toxic effect in the SD rats, when it was orally administrated below the dosage 2.0 g/Kg/day for 4weeks.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF PACKAGING SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.153-161
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• 2023

The worldwide effects of COVID-19 have led to a surge in online shopping and contactless services. The consumption pattern has caused the issues such as the environmental pollution together with the increase of plastic waste. Reducing the reliance on the petroleum based plastic use for the package and replacing it with environmentally friendly material are the simple ways in order to solve those problems. Paper is an eco-friendly product with high recyclability as the food packaging materials but has still poor barrier properties. A barrier coating on surface of the paper can be achieved with the proper packaging materials featuring water, gas and grease barrier. Polyethylene (PE) or polypropylene (PP) coatings which are generally laminated or coated to paper are widely used in food packaging applications to protect products from moisture and provide water or grease resistance. However, recycling of packaging containing PE or PP matrix is limited and costly because those films are difficult to degrade in the environment. This study investigated the recyclability of modified acrylic emulsion coating papers compared to PE and PP polymer matrixes as well as their mechanical and gas barrier properties. The results showed that PE or modified acrylic emulsion coated papers had better mechanical properties compared to the uncoated paper as a control. PE or PP coating papers showed strong oil resistance property, achieving a kit rating of 12. Those papers also had a significantly higher percentage of screen reject during the recycling process than modified acrylic coated paper which had a screen rejection rate of 6.25%. In addition an uncoated paper had similar value of a screen rejection rate. It may suggest that modified acrylic emulsion coating paper can be more easily recycled than PE or PP coating papers. The overall results of the study found that modified acrylic emulsion coating paper would be a viable alternative to suggest a possible solution to an environmental problem as well as enhancing the weak mechanical and poor gas barrier properties of the paper against moisture.