• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.58-65
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• 2014

This study aims to understand the environmental impact reduction of green buildings that are certified by Green standard for energy and environmental design(G-SEED). To ensure this end, this study assessed and compared the environmental impacts(global warning, ozone layer depletion, acidification, and eutrophication) of a G-SEED-certified elementary school building(green building) and an uncertified elementary school building(traditional building) using the life cycle assessment methodology. This study considered the environmental impacts from the material manufacturing, material transportation, on-site construction, and operation during 40 years. The comparison of the environmental impact intensity of two buildings showed that the green building generated much more environmental impacts than the traditional building. For example, the global warming potential of the green building was approximately 12.5% higher than of the traditional building since the global warming potential of the green building was 3.751 $t-CO_2eq./m^2$ while that of the traditional building was 3.282 $t-CO_2eq./m^2$. It signifies that the G-SEED doesn't guarantee the reduction of the environmental impacts in terms of four impact categories. Therefore, the G-SEED should be complemented and improved to achieve the environmental impact reduction.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.238-253
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• 2017

The sewage and wastewater (SAW) are a well-known major source of eutrophication and greentide in freshwaters and also a potential source of thermal pollution; however, there were few approaches to thermal effluent of SAW in Korea. This study was performed to understand the behavioral dynamics of the thermal effluents and their effects on the water quality of the connected streams during winter season, considering domestic sewage, industrial wastewater and hot spring wastewater from December 2015 to February 2016. Sampling stations were selected the upstream, the outlet of SAW, and the downstream in each connected stream, and the water temperature change was monitored toward the downstream from the discharging point of SAW. The temperature effect and its range of SAW on the stream were dependent not only on the effluent temperature and quantity but also on the local air temperature, water temperature and stream discharge. The SAW effects on the stream water temperature were observed with temperature increase by $2.1{\sim}5.8^{\circ}C$ in the range of 1.0 to 5.5 km downstream. Temperature effect was the greatest in the hot spring wastewater despite of small amount of effluent. The SAW was not only related to temperature but also to the increase of organic matter and nutrients in the connected stream. The industrial wastewater effluent was discharged with high concentration of nitrogen, while the hot spring wastewater was high in both phosphorus and nitrogen. The difference between these cases was due to with and without chemical T-P treatment in the industrial and the hot spring wastewater, respectively. The chlorophyll-a content of the attached algae was high at the outlet of SAW and the downstream reach, mostly in eutrophic level. These ecological results were presumably due to the high water temperature and phosphorus concentration in the stream brought by the thermal effluents of SAW. These results suggest that high temperature of the SAW needs to be emphasized when evaluating its effects on the stream water quality (water temperature, fertility) through a systematized spatial and temporal investigation.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.162-166
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• 2011

Phosphorous contaminated in the effluent from sewage treatment plants can cause the eutrophication in surface water bodies. In this study, a powder of titanium oxysulfate-sulfuric acid made of ion-exchange materials was immobilized in an alginate gel and this material was examined to evaluate its phosphorous removal efficiency. Equilibrium and kinetic studies were carried out to quantify the adsorption capacity and time dependent removal rate of phosphorous. Adsorption isotherms and kinetic parameters were obtained for the entrapped titanium beads with three different methods. Equilibrium data were analyzed using Langmuir adsorption isotherm model and found to be well fitted to the model. The maximum adsorption capacity for phosphorous by the titanium bead synthesized with the solution method was 92.26 mg/g. Kinetic data followed a pseudo-second-order kinetic model. Due to the low production cost and high adsorption capacity, the titanium bead synthesized by the solution method has a potential to be utilized for the cost-effective removal of phosphorous from wastewater.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.64-73
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• 2013

The application of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology to analyze the environmental impact to different swine waste treatment systems was investigated. The first part of LCA is to organize an inventory of parameters and emissions released due to the system under investigation. In the following step of the Life Cycle Impact Assessment, the inventory data were analyzed and aggregated in order to finally get one index representing the total environmental burden. For the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) the Eco-indicator 95 method has been chosen because this is well documented and regularly applied impact method. Two different swine waste treatment systems such as aerobic and anaerobic digestion systems were chosen as an example for the life cycle impact analysis. For establishing the parameters to be assessed the agricultural environmental effects to above swine waste treatment systems, it has been observed that there was high at T-P emission in anaerobic digestion system and $CO_2$ emission in aerobic digestion system. For Eco-indicator values per environmental effect for swine waste treatment systems related to one tonne of swine waste, it was shown that there was a negative index for global warm potential and soil acidification in aerobic digestion system, but relatively high positive index for eutrophication in anaerobic digestion system.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.25-35
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• 2007

Excess runoff contaminated with N and P can impact the quality of downstream water. It has been known that aquatic plants improve the water quality through their intake of organic or inorganic nutrients. This study was conducted to select aquatic plants having high purification ability for nutrient N and P, and mineral nutrients related to EC such as K, Ca, Na, Cl, and $SO_4$ in raw sewage water in greenhouse. We assessed nutrient phytoremediation potential of alien hydrophyte and hydro-crop as well as native landscape hydrophyte to select suitable aquatic plant applied to artificial wetland and buffering site of stream-side. The amount of irrigation water during whole growing period of aquatic plane ranged from 225 L $m^{-2}$ to 444 L $m^{-2}$. Oryza sativa, Typha orientalis, Zizania latifolia, Aster subulatus, Coix lachryma-jobi var. mayuen, Paspalum disdichum var. indutum which had high biomass consumed the large amount of irrigation water over 350 L $m^{-2}$. As a result of analysis of water purification effect N and P content of shoot biomass, and media soil after experiment, Oryza sativa, Zizania latifolia, Aster subulatus, Coix lachryma-jobi var. mayuen, Paspalum distichum var. indutum showed high purification ability about eutrophication elements such as T-N and T-P. It is presented that Pistia stratiotes, Eichhornia crassipes, and Paspalum distichum var. indutum had excellent purification ability about K, Ca, Na, and Cl. Moreover, Paspalum distichum var. indutum greatly removed $SO_4$ in row sewage water.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.39 no.12
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• pp.698-705
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• 2017

Environmental impact of a mobile phone charger containing recycled plastic was quantified using LCA and the environmental benefits from the use of recycled and virgin plastic were compared. The assessment considers potential environmental impacts across the whole life cycle of the charger including; pre-manufacturing; manufacturing; distribution; product use; and end-of-life stages and quantified six environmental impact categories; Abiotic depletion; Acidification; Eutrophication; Global warming; Ozone layer depletion; and Photochemical oxidants creation. The study showed that the environmental impacts of the use stage accounted for 94.4% and 70% in the resource depletion and global warming impact categories, respectively, and the environmental impacts of the pre - manufacturing stage accounted for more than 98% in the other impact categories. The main cause of the environmental impacts in the use stage was electricity consumed by the charger. The main cause in the pre-manufacturing stage was PBA (Printed Board Assembly) and external case manufacturing. In order to quantify the environmental benefits of recycled PC (Polycarbonate) in the exterior case, the environmental impacts of 1 kg production of recycled PC and virgin PC were evaluated. The environmental impact on the abiotic depletion of the recycled PC is estimated to be 30% compared to the virgin PC, and the impacts on the other impact categories of the recycled PC were less than 5% of the virgin plastic. Sensitivity analysis was performed for 12 items including site data and assumptions made. The sensitivity of each item was less than 10%. The results of this study confirm that designing compact and light PBA, improving charging efficiency, and use of recycled plastic are important design factors to reduce the environmental impact of a charger.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.35-43
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• 2014

The application of the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) methodology to analyze the environmental burden of appling the digestates to corn field including different swine waste treatment systems was investigated. The first part of LCA is an inventory of parameters used to emissions released due to the system under investigation. In the following step, the Life Cycle Impact Assessment, the inventory data were analyzed and aggregated in order to finally get one index representing the each environmental burden. Each corn field applied with the aerobic and anaerobic digestates including different swine waste treatment systems was used as an example for the life cycle impact analysis. With analyzing the agricultural environmental burden, it observed that the effect of corn field applied aerobic digestate including digestion system was 7.6 times higher at eutrophication effects, but global warming potential effect was 0.9 times less than its applied anaerobic digestate.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.320-333
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• 2016

This study was carried out to elucidate the development of unprecedented water-bloom caused by a single species of colonial green algae Eudorina elegans in the upstream area of the Seungchon weir located in the Yeongsan River from late April to May 2013. The Yeongsan River is typically regulated system and the waterbody is seriously enriched by both external and internal sources of nutrients. Seasonal algal outbreaks were highly probable due to various potential factors, such as the excessive nutrients contained in treated wastewater, slow current, high irradiation and temperature, in diatom (winter), green algae (spring) and bluegreen algae (summer). Spring green-tide was attributed to E. elegans with level up to $1,000mg\;m^{-3}$(>$50{\times}10^4cells\;mL^{-1}$). The bloom was exploded in the initial period of the algal development and after then gradually diminished with transporting to the downstream by the intermittent rainfall, resulting in rapid expansion of the distribution range. Although the pulsed-flows by the weir manipulation was applied to control algal bloom, they were not the countermeasures to solve the underlying problem, but rather there still was a remaining problem related to the impact of pulsed-flows on the downstream. The green-tide of E. elegans in this particular region of the Yeongsan River revealed the blooming characteristics of a colonial motile microalga, and fate of vanishing away by the succeeding episodic events of mesoscale rainfall. We believe that the results of the present study contribute to limno-ecological understanding of the green-tide caused by blue-green algae in the four major rivers, Korea.

• Clean Technology
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.269-274
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• 2018

In this study, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of wet tissue manufacturing process was performed. The wet tissue manufacturing process consists of preparation of wetting agent (chemical liquid), impregnation of nonwoven fabric into wetting agent and primary and secondary packaging. Data and information were collected on the input and output of the actual process from a certain company and the database of the Korea Ministry of Environment and some foreign countries (when Korean unavailable) were employed to connect the upper and the lower process flow. Based on the above and the potential environmental impacts of the wet tissue manufacturing process were calculated. As a result of the characterization, Ozone Layer Depletion (OD) is 3.46.E-06 kg $CFC_{11}$, Acidification (AD) is 5.11.E-01 kg $SO_2$, Abiotic Resource Depletion (ARD) is $3.52.E+00\;1yr^{-1}$, Global Warming (GW) is 1.04.E+02 kg $CO_2$, Eutrophication (EUT) is 2.31.E-02 kg ${PO_4}^{3-}$, Photochemical Oxide Creation (POC) was 2.22.E-02 kg $C_2H_4$, Human Toxicity (HT) was 1.55.E+00 kg 1,4 DCB and Terrestrial Ecotoxicity (ET) was 5.82.E-04 kg 1,4 DCB. In order to reduce the environmental impact of the manufacturing process, it is necessary to improve the overall process as other general cases and change the raw materials including packaging materials with less environmental impact. Conclusively, the energy consumed in the manufacturing process has emerged as a major issue, and this needs to be reconsidered other options such as alternative energy. Therefore, it is recommended that a process system should be redesigned to improve energy efficiency and to change to an energy source with lower environmental impact. Due to the nature of LCA, the final results of this study can be varied to some extent depending on the type of LCI DB employed and may not represent of all wet tissue manufacturing processes in the current industry.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.228-236
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• 2019

This study investigated the effect of the sediment phosphorus fraction sampled from the southern coast of Korea on the release characteristics of sediments by environmental changes of water quality. We conducted the release experiment in the laboratory for 20 days and measured the phosphorus fraction properties, the environmental factors of water quality, and the release rate of total phosphorus. The results showed a decrease in dissolved oxygen by the growth of microorganisms in the water layer, leading to the anaerobic condition in which the redox potential of the sediments decreased. As such, the decreasing variability of phosphates bonded to iron oxide in the sediment phosphorus was higher after 20 days of the release experiment than the first day. It means that the metal ions and the separated inorganic phosphorus transfer into the water when the iron oxide is reduced. The separated inorganic phosphorus is easily absorbed by the plankton. The analysis of total phosphorus in the water layer showed that it continuously increased to up to 0.304 mg/L for 20 days, and the release rate had a high correlation with the decrease of dissolved oxygen after 5 days of culture. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to the characteristics of iron bonded to phosphorus in the phosphorus fraction and dissolved oxygen to manage the eutrophication of the system.