• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.236-242
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• 2017

The conversion of marine biomass to renewable energy has been considered an alternative to fossil fuels. Butanol, in particular, can be used directly as a fuel. In this experiment, the brown alga Undaria pinnatifida was selected as a biomass for biobutanol production. Hyper thermal (HT) acid hydrolysis was used as an acid hydrolysis method to produce monosaccharides. The optimal pretreatment conditions for U. pinnatifida were determined as slurry with 10% (w/v) U. pinnatifida content and 270 mM $H_2SO_4$, and heating at $160^{\circ}C$ for 7.5 min. Enzymatic saccharification was carried out with Celluclast 1.5 L, Viscozyme L, and Ultraflo Max. The optimal saccharification condition was 12 U/ml Viscozyme L. Fermentations were carried out for the production of acetone, butanol, and ethanol by Clostridium acetobutylicum KCTC 1724, Clostridium beijerinckii KCTC 1785, and Clostridium tyrobutyricum KCTC 5387. The fermentations were carried out using a pH-control. The optimal ABE fermentation condition determined using C. acetobutylicum KCTC 1724 adapted to 160 g/l mannitol. An ABE concentration of 9.05 g/l (0.99 g/l acetone, 5.62 g/l butanol, 2.44 g/l ethanol) was obtained by the consumption of 24.14 g/l monosaccharide with $Y_{ABE}$ of 0.37 in pH 5.0.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.34 no.12
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• pp.840-846
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• 2012

Global climate changes caused by $CO_2$ emissions are currently debated around the world; green sources of energy are being sought as alternatives to replace fossil fuels. The sustainable use of biogas for energy production does not contribute to $CO_2$ emission and has therefore a high potential to reduce them. Catalytic steam reforming of a model biogas ($CH_4:CO_2$ = 60%:40%) is investigated to produce $H_2$-rich synthesis gas. The biogas utilized 3D-IR matrix burner in which the surface combustion is applied. The ruthenium catalyst was used inside a reformer. Parametric screening studies were achieved as Steam/Carbon ratio, biogas component ratio, Space velocity and Reformer temperature. When the condition of Steam/Carbon ratio, $CH_4/CO_2$ ratio, Space velocity and Refomer temperature were 3.25, 60% : 40%, $14.7L/g{\cdot}hr$ and $550^{\circ}C$ respectively, the hydrogen concentration and methane conversion rate were showed maximum values. Under the condition mentioned above, $H_2$ yield, $H_2$/CO ratio, CO selectivity and energy efficiency were 0.65, 2.14, 0.59, 51.29%.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.1-7
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• 2018

The gases emitted from internal combustion engines using fossil fuels are causing many social problems, such as environmental pollution, global warming, and adverse health effects on the human body. In recent years, the demand for renewable energy has increased, and government policy support and research and development are also active. In the collecting part of a solar energy system, which is widely used at home, propylene glycol (PG) (anti-freeze), as a heating medium, is mixed with water at a fixed value of 50%, and the heat is transferred to the collecting part at subzero temperatures. On the other hand, when leakage occurs in the heat medium in the heat collecting part, supplemental water is supplied to the solar heat collecting part due to the characteristics of the solar heat system, so that the concentration of antifreeze in the replenishing water becomes low. As a result, the temperature of the solar heat collecting part is lowered resulting in a frost wave, which causes economic damage. The purpose of this study was to develop a device capable of controlling the antifreeze concentration automatically in response to a temperature drop to prevent freezing of the heat collecting part generated in the solar energy system. The electrical conductivity of the H2O component was larger than that of PG, and the resistance increased with decreasing temperature. The PG concentration control values of 40, 50, and 60% should be controlled through calibration with a PG concentration of 39.6, 50.7, and 60.1%.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.603-610
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• 2018

The development of industry and the increase in the use of fossil fuels have accelerated the process of global warming and climate change, resulting in more frequent and intense natural disasters than ever before. Since electricity facilities are often installed outdoors, they are heavily influenced by natural disasters and the number of related accidents is increasing. In this paper, we analyzed the statistical status of domestic electrical fires, electric shock accidents, and electrical equipment accidents and hence analyzed the risk associated with climate change. Through the analysis of the electrical accidental data in connection with the various regional (metropolitan) climatic conditions (temperature, humidity), the risk rating and charts for each region and each equipment were produced. Based on this analysis, a basic electric risk prediction model is presented and a method of displaying an electric hazard prediction map for each region and each type of electric facilities through a website or smart phone app was developed using the proposed analysis data. In addition, efforts should be made to increase the durability of the electrical equipment and improve the resistance standards to prevent future disasters.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.30 no.10
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• pp.919-929
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• 2020

Aromatic compounds are widely used in the chemical, food, polymer, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical industries and are produced by mainly chemical synthesis using benzene, toluene, and xylene or by plant extraction methods. Due to many rising threats, including the depletion of fossil fuels, global warming, the strengthening of international environmental regulations, and the excessive harvesting of plant resources, the microbial production of aromatic compounds using renewable biomass is regarded as a promising alternative. By integrating metabolic engineering with synthetic and systems biology, artificial biosynthetic pathways have been reconstituted from L-tryptophan biosynthetic pathway in relevant microorganisms, such as Escherichia coli and Corynebacterium glutamicum, enabling the production of a variety of value-added aromatic compounds, such as 5-hydroxytryptophan, serotonin, melatonin, 7-chloro-L-tryptophan, 7-bromo-L-tryptophan, indigo, indirubin, indole-3-acetic acid, violacein, and dexoyviolacein. In this review, we summarize the characteristics, usage, and biosynthetic pathways of these aromatic compounds and highlight the latest metabolic engineering strategies for the microbial production of aromatic compounds and suitable solution strategies to overcome problems in increasing production titers. It is expected that strain development based on systems metabolic engineering and the optimization of media and bioprocesses using renewable biomass will enable the development of commercially viable technologies for the microbial production of many aromatic compounds.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.731-744
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• 2013

Energy security is a topic of high importance to many countries throughout the world. Countries with access to vast energy supplies enjoy all of the economic and political benefits that come with controlling a highly sought after commodity. Given the desire to diversify away from fossil fuels due to rising environmental and economic concerns, there are limited technology options available for baseload electricity generation. Further complicating this issue is the desire for energy sources to be sustainable and globally scalable in addition to being economic and environmentally benign. Nuclear energy in its current form meets many but not all of these attributes. In order to address these limitations, TerraPower, LLC has developed the Traveling Wave Reactor (TWR) which is a near-term deployable and truly sustainable energy solution that is globally scalable for the indefinite future. The fast neutron spectrum allows up to a ~30-fold gain in fuel utilization efficiency when compared to conventional light water reactors utilizing enriched fuel. When compared to other fast reactors, TWRs represent the lowest cost alternative to enjoy the energy security benefits of an advanced nuclear fuel cycle without the associated proliferation concerns of chemical reprocessing. On a country level, this represents a significant savings in the energy generation infrastructure for several reasons 1) no reprocessing plants need to be built, 2) a reduced number of enrichment plants need to be built, 3) reduced waste production results in a lower repository capacity requirement and reduced waste transportation costs and 4) less uranium ore needs to be mined or purchased since natural or depleted uranium can be used directly as fuel. With advanced technological development and added cost, TWRs are also capable of reusing both their own used fuel and used fuel from LWRs, thereby eliminating the need for enrichment in the longer term and reducing the overall societal waste burden. This paper describes the origins and current status of the TWR development program at TerraPower, LLC. Some of the areas covered include the key TWR design challenges and brief descriptions of TWR-Prototype (TWR-P) reactor. Selected information on the TWR-P core designs are also provided in the areas of neutronic, thermal hydraulic and fuel performance. The TWR-P plant design is also described in such areas as; system design descriptions, mechanical design, and safety performance.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.39 no.5 s.180
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• pp.615-626
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• 2006

The natural resources and material life-cycle include all human activities related to resources and material extraction, transportation, processing, use, recovery and disposal. Sustainable material management (SMM) is an integrated set of policy approaches targeted on economic agents throughout the material life-cycles and designed to result in economically efficient and environmentally effective material use. The material flows of industrial mineral, ores and fossil fuels have also long been a focal area for environmental policies because of the high environmental pressures associated with extraction, processing, consumption, and final disposal of these materials. OECD work on material flow is to improve the quantitative and analytical knowledge bases about natural resource and material flows within and among countries, so as to better understand the importance of material resources in member countries' economies. In several EU Member States, material flow accounts are part of official statistics. Material flow analysis (MFA) is a valuation method which assesses the efficiency of use of materials using information from material flow accounting. Material flow analysis helps to identify waste of natural resources and other materials in the economy which would otherwise go unnoticed in conventional economic monitoring systems. Resource use and resource efficiency has emerged as a major issue for long-term sustainability and environmental policy.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.303-321
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• 2011

The availability and efficient use of the feed resources in Asia are the primary drivers of performance to maximise productivity from animals. Feed security is fundamental to the management, extent of use, conservation and intensification for productivity enhancement. The awesome reality is that current supplies of animal proteins are inadequate to meet human requirements in the face of rapidly depleting resources: arable land, water, fossil fuels, nitrogenous and other fertilisers, and decreased supplies of cereal grains. The contribution of the ruminant sector lags well behind that of non-ruminant pigs and poultry. It is compelling therefore to shift priority for the development of ruminants (buffaloes, cattle, goats and sheep) in key agro-ecological zones (AEZs), making intensive use of the available biomass from the forage resources, crop residues, agro-industrial by-products (AIBP) and other non-conventional feed resources (NCFR). Definitions are given of successful and failed projects on feed resource use. These were used to analyse 12 case studies, which indicated the value of strong participatory efforts with farmers, empowerment, and the benefits from animals of productivity-enhancing technologies and integrated natural resource management (NRM). However, wider replication and scaling up were inadequate in project formulation, including systems methodologies that promoted technology adoption. There was overwhelming emphasis on component technology applications that were duplicated across countries, often wasteful, the results and relevance of which were not clear. Technology delivery via the traditional model of research-extension linkage was also inadequate, and needs to be expanded to participatory research-extension-farmer linkages to accelerate diffusion of technologies, wider adoption and impacts. Other major limitations concerned with feed resource use are failure to view this issue from a farming systems perspective, strong disciplinary bias, and poor links to real farm situations. It is suggested that improved efficiency in feed resource use and increased productivity from animals in the future needs to be cognisant of nine strategies. These include priorities for feed resource use; promoting intensive use of crop residues; intensification of integrated ruminant-oil palm systems and use of oil palm by-products; priority for urgent, wider technology application, adoption and scaling up; rigorous application of systems methodologies; development of adaptation and mitigation options for the effects of climate change on feed resources; strengthening research-extension-farmer linkages; development of year round feeding systems; and striving for sustainability of integrated farming systems. These strategies together form the challenges for the future.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.347-359
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• 2009

The concentrations of PAHs in $PM_{10}$ fine particles were determined at two sites, which were Jongno, one of the urban core sites of Seoul, and Yongin, a downwind site of Seoul. The average concentration of PAHs in $PM_{10}$ was $19.92{\pm}18.49\;ng\;m^{-3}$ with the range of $1.28{\sim}81.22\;ng\;m^{-3}$ at Jongno site of Seoul from August 2006 to August 2007, and $14.06{\pm}9.96\;ng\;m^{-3}$ with the range of $1.66{\sim}31.84\;ng\;m^{-3}$ at Yongin site from September to November of 2006. In the results of monthly comparison, the concentration of PAHs in August was the lowest level of $3.23\;ng\;m^{-3}$, but the highest level of $46.24\;ng\;m^{-3}$ in January. The seasonal comparison showed the concentration in winter was higher by the factor of 11.9 than in summer. The concentrations of PAHs during a warm period (November${\sim}$March) increased as 5.1 times higher than those during a cold period (April${\sim}$October). The concentrations of PAHs were assumed to be largely attributed to the consumption of fossil fuels, temperature, mixing height, and photochemical reactions in Seoul metropolitan area.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.702-708
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• 2018

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs), as a significant air pollutant, is generated mainly from the burning of fossil fuels, building materials using painting, etc. The inhalation of a certain amount of VOCs can be deleterious to human health, e.g., headaches, nausea and vomiting. In addition, it can also cause memory loss and even increase the rate of leukemia. Therefore, as one of the methods for reducing VOCs in air, polyacrylonitrile/fly ash (PAN/FA) composite nanofibrous membranes were fabricated by electrospinning. To observe their VOCs adsorption capacity, the morphological structure of PAN/FA nanofibrous mats was investigated by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), and the VOCs (chloroform, benzene, toluene, and xylene) adsorption capacity of PAN/FA membranes were tested by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). The results indicated that the PAN nanofiber containing 40 wt. % FA powder had the smallest fiber diameter of 283 nm; they also showed the highest VOCs adsorption capacity compared to other composite membranes.