• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• v.5 no.6
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• pp.460-464
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• 2000

Extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) are believed to play a role in the binding and formation of microbial flocs. However, the precise role is not well known. Sludge settling characteristics and the carbohydrate to protein ratio in EPS were tested with various airflow rates in this study. Sludge was collected from three modified sequencing batch reactors (SBRs), which were operated at 16$\^{C}$ with an airflow rate of 0.8L/min, 3L/min and 6L/min, respectively. During the operation, the reactor operated at an airflow rate of 0.8L/min showed sludge volume index (SVI) of 80 to 90ml/g and a constant ratio of carbohydrate to protein in the EPS, while a significant increase in the SVI was seen in the other reactors. Sludge bulking increased the amount of carbohydrate in the EPS, while kept protein almost constant in the airflow rate of 3L/min ad 6L/min. Surface charge also increased with increases in the carbohydrate to protein ratio in the EPS, which weakens the attraction between the EPS and multivalent cations. The ratio of carbohydrate to protein in the EPS was tween the EPS and multivalent cations. The ratio of carbohydrate to protein in the EPS was inferred to be essential for bioflocculation.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.195-203
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• 2018

N-acetylcysteine (NAC) has been widely used as an initial mucolytic agent and is generally used as an antioxidant to help alleviate various inflammatory symptoms. NAC reduces bacterial extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) production, bacterial adhesion to the surface and strength of mature biofilm. The efficacy has been shown to inhibit proliferation of gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. In membrane bioreactor (MBR) processes, which contain a variety of gram negative bacteria, biofilm formation has become a serious problem in stable operation. In this study, use of NAC as an inhibitor of biofilm contamination was investigated using the center for disease control (CDC) reactors with MBR sludge. Biomass reduction was confirmed with CLSM images of membrane surfaces by addition of NAC, which was more efficient as the concentration of NAC was increased to 1.5 mg/mL. NAC addition also showed decreases in EPS concentrations of the preformed biofilm, indicating that NAC was able to degrade EPS in the mature biofilm. NAC addition was also effective to inhibit biofilm formation by MBR sludge, which consisted of various microorganisms in consortia.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.331-338
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• 2019

This study aimed to investigate the membrane fouling and sludge characteristics in a pilot-scale submerged membrane bioreactor (MBR) operated under low temperature ($7^{\circ}C$). To elucidate the mechanisms of membrane fouling at low temperature, we studied the correlation between MBR performances and physicochemical properties of sludge including extracellular polymeric substance (EPS), relative hydrophobicity (RH) and floc size during long-term operation. The MBR was shown able to remove chemical oxygen demand (COD) stably and efficiently (>90 %) in the case of overgrowth of filamentous bacteria (bulking sludge) at low temperature. On the other hand, the occurrence of filamentous bulking greatly accelerated membrane fouling, as indicated by membrane filtration period of 14 days for filamentous bulking at $7^{\circ}C$, in comparison with that of 27 days for non-bulking sludge at $24^{\circ}C$ The overgrowth of filamentous bacteria resulting from low-temperature condition led to an increased release of EPS, higher RH, smaller floc size and lower fractal dimension of sludge. These factors accelerated the formation of compact cake layer on membrane surface in association with performance diminution in terms of increase in transmembrane pressure (TMP) of the membrane and thus the decrease in membrane permeability.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.283-288
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• 2007

In order to elucidate the relationship between the sludge retention time(SRT) and the toxicity of heavy metals, such as copper (Cu), cadmium(Cd), and zinc(Zn), in sequencing batch reactor(SBR) process, IC50 was estimated with measuring of INT-dehydrogenase activity in variable SRTs. When the concentrations of heavy metals were increased, the activity of INT-dehydrogenase was gradually decreased indicating the heavy metals inhibit bacterial activity. Cu showed higher toxicity than Zn and Cd. $IC_{50}$ of Cu, Cd, and Zn ranged from $0.37\sim1.96$ mg/L, $15.4\sim16.9$ mg/L, and $9.70\sim23.4$ mg/L, respectively. The toxicity of Cu and Zn was reversely proportional to the length of SRT. It is probably caused by the increased concentration of extracellular polymeric substances in longer SRT which absorb heavy metals. Therefore, the operation of SBR with increased SRT is desirable in treatment of industrial wastewater containing heavy metals.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.85-93
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• 2011

The structural components of microorganism are quite related to the toxin and environmental conditions. The vegetative and dormant cells are quite affected by the physical and chemical environments to survive and they will be dormant when they are in the extreme environment. The mechanism to activate the microorganisms however, is not well defined yet in the area of activation state and sporulation state through the analysis of EPS. Other than that even the main mechanism of prior to acquisition of analysis values is not well understood. Therefore, what kind of specific environment to affect the activation and sporulation will be discussed through the analysis of the extracellular polymeric substances(EPS). EPS are a high molecular weight mixture of polymers presenting both outside of cells and interior of microbial aggregates. They are a major complex materials in microbial aggregation for sustaining them together in a three dimensional matrix. Three commonly used extraction methods were applied to this study their effectiveness and quantification in extracting EPS from several Bacillus microorganisms and activated sludge. Three extraction methods used for this study are regular centrifugation with formaldehyde (RCF), Steaming, and EDTA extraction. The results of EPS contents such as the quantitative proteins, carbohydrates and the ratio of protein versus carbohydrate from the several species with the several specific methods showed in this research. This study aims to get comparable results of the quantitative production of EPS and the effectiveness of sedimentation for Bacillus microorganisms and activated sludge from several wastewater treatment plans. The results revealed that the protein amount extracted was the highest by the Steaming method of three extraction methods before sporulation and the carbohydrate amount extracted was the highest by the RCA method of three extraction methods after sporulation. The higher amount of protein compared with carbohydrate from Bacillus microorganisms affected higher sedimentation efficiency, however it could not be found the relation between the EPS production and sedimentation efficiency for the activated sludge.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.141-147
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• 2010

The objective of this study was to assess the biofouling characteristics of the Bacillus biofilm formed on reverse osmosis (RO) membranes. For the study, a sporogenic Bacillus sp. was isolated from the seawater intake to a RO process, with two distinct sets of experiments performed to grow the Bacillus biofilm on the RO membrane using a lab-scale crossflow membrane test unit. Two operational feds were used, 9 L sterile-filtered seawater and 109 Bacillus cells, with flow rates of 1 L/min, and a constant 800 psi-pressure and pH 7.6. From the results, the membrane with more fouling, in which the observed permeate flux decreased to 33% of its initial value, showed about 10 and 100 times greater extracellular polymeric substances and spoOA genes expressions, respectively, than the those of the less fouled membrane (flux declined to 20% of its initial value). Interestingly; however, the number of culturable Bacillus sp. in the more fouled membrane was about 10 times less than that of the less fouled membrane. This indicated that while the number of Bacillus had less relevance with respect to the extent of biofouling, the activation of the genes of interest, which is initiative of biofilm development, had a more positive effect on biofouling than the mass of an individual Bacillus bacterium.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.55-61
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• 2016

Organic fouling observed in submerged membrane filtration as a pretreatment for seawater desalination increases energy consumption for membrane operation because of requiring frequent chemical cleaning and membrane replacement. In membrane pretreatment for seawater facing with algae blooms, membrane fouling was observed in submerged microfiltration using sodium alginate model compound which is one of the main components of extracellular polymeric substances. Without aeration, aglinate fouling increased with its concentration while aeration reduced the alginate fouling effectively regardless of its concentration tested. In the absence of aeration, alingate fouling tended to be decreased with increasing calcium concentration. However, this effectiveness was reduced by increasing sodium chloride concentration. At high concentration of sodium chloride and calcium similar to the seawater conditions, aeration reduced initial fouling. However, as time progressed, the effect of increased airflow rate on fouling reduction was not significant, implying that optimum airflow rate to control alginate fouling in submerged microfiltration can exist.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.175-180
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• 2008

The objective of this study was to investigate biosorption of organic matter on EPS(Extracellular Polymeric Substances) at different SRT(Sludge Retention Time) in a SBR(Sequencing Batch Reactor) process, which was operated with the following operation steps : Fill-React-Settle-Decant-Idle. The hydraulic retention time was set to be 24 hours. The results obtained from this study showed that the organic removal efficiency per unit microbial biomass decreased with increasing SRT, and the corresponding EPS amount also did. The percent removal of organic by biosorption increased with SRT, and it reached to 53.2% at SRT of 30 days. However, the highest biosorption per microbial biomass(48.6 mgCOD/gVSS) was found at SRT of 2 days. The EPS analysis was performed by measuring TSS, TCOD$_{Cr}$, and TKN. The EPS production per unit microbial biomass was observed to be high at a low SRT. Due to the above result, the floc formation was hindered and therefore poor settlement of sludge resulted in decreasing the COD removal efficiency. It was therefore concluded that the consideration of the system design should include the characteristic of EPS as well as other factors such as SRT, MLSS, and organic loading.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.139-147
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• 2004

We have isolated two bacterial strains, FM-02 and AL-02, which produced EPS from forest soil for the restoration of forest fire by promoting soil aggregation. FM-02 was found to be Gram negative rod and belong to Beta Proteobacterium sp. through 16s-rDNA sequence analysis, and AL-02 was Gram positive rod and showed 81% of similarity to Zoogloea sp. through the analysis of 16s-rDNA sequence. FM-02 and AL-02 produced about 1.8g and 8.3g of EPS, respectively, per 1L of culture as dry weight. Flocculation activity (FA) was also measured in two strains. FM-02 showed 2.31 FA against active carbon, and AL-02 showed 6.21 FA against kaolin clay. From these results, we expect that AL-02 strain will be applied as a good biological material for the reduction of forest soil erosion by wild and rain after fire through promoting coagulation of soil particles.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.521-526
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• 2006

A membrane bioreactor (MBR) is an effective tool for wastewater treatment with recycling. MBR process has several advantages over conventional activated sludge process (ASP); reliability, compactness, and quality of treated water. The resulting high-quality and disinfected effluents suggest that MBR process can be suitable for the reused and recycling of wastewater. An anoxic/oxic (A/O) type MBR was applied to simultaneous removal of organics and nutrients in sewage. At first, the efficiency of submerged MBR process was investigated using a hollow fiber microfiltration membrane with a constant flux of $10.2L/m^2{\cdot}h$ at each solids retention time (SRT). Results showed that protein/carbohydrate (P/C) ratio increased and total extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) remained constant with SRT increased. Secondly, A/O type MBR with a reverse osmosis (RO) membrane was employed to treat the municipal wastewater. The performance of A/O type MBR-RO process is better for the treatment of organics and nutrients than ASP-MF-RO process in terms of consistent effluents quality.