• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.677-683
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• 2005

In this work, the effect of additives such as solvent, sodium dodecyl sulfate and NaCl on microemulsion phase behavior and flux removal efficiency in systems containing commercial alkyl ethoxylates nonionic surfactant was investigated. The addition of a n-hydrocarbon as a solvent produced on O/W (Oil/Water) microemulsion phase over a wider range of temperature and cosurfactant to surfactant ratios. Especially, the addition of n-hexadecane to the surfactant system, which was the most hydrophobic solvent among the solvents used in this study, produced a microemulsion phase over a wide range of temperatures and promoted formation of a microemulsion phase at lower temperatures. The candidate for cleaner samples, prepared from phase behavior experiments, showed excellent removal efficiency for abietic acid at $40^{\circ}C$. These data suggested the potential applicability of hydrocarbons to actual cleaner formulations.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.537-542
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• 1999

Removal of sulfur compounds in the petroleum products is essential for the prevention of sulfur oxides. However, conventional methods involving catalytic reactions are found to have some limitations in complete removal of harmful sulfur compounds and to require relatively high cost. Recently, desulfurization process using microorganisms is known to be promising in terms of excellent sulfur removal efficiency and reasonably low treatment cost. For the biodesulfurization process to be effective, the solubilization of sulfur compounds into aqueous solution is a prerequisite. In this study, polyoxyethylene nonionic surfactants were used in order to enhance the solubilization of sulfur spectrophotometer. The solubilization of sulfur compounds was found to increase with temperature and to bo abruptly increased at above 1 wt % surfactant solutions. It was also observed that the longer the hydrophobic chain of the surfactant molecule, the higher solubilizing power of a nonionic surfactant. It was found that the Tergitol series surfactants showed higher solubilizing capacity than Neodol series presumably due to the disruption of the regular packing in the hydrocarbon region of the surfactant aggregates.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.231-237
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• 2014

The supercritical fluids (SCFs) have been widely used for material synthesis and processing due to their remarkable properties including low viscosity, high diffusivity and low surface tension. Carbon dioxide is one of the suitable solvents in SCFs processes in terms of its advantages such as easy processibility (with low critical temperature and pressure), inexpensive, nonflammable, nontoxic, and readily available. However, it has generally low solubility for high molecular weight polymers with the exception of fluoropolymers and siloxane polymers. Therefore, hydrocarbon solvents and hydrochlorofluorocarbons have been used for various SCFs process by its high solubility for high molecular weight polymers. In this report, a PMMA/clay nanocomposites were fabricated by using supercritical fluid process. The $Na^+$-MMT(montmorillonites)was modified by a fluorinated surfactant which is able to enhance compatibility with the chlorodifluoromethane(HCFC-22) and thus, improve dispersability of the clay in the polymer matrix. The PMMA/fluorinated surfactant modified clay nanocomposite shows enhanced mechanical and thermal properties which characterized by X-raydiffraction(XRD), Thermo gravimetric analysis(TGA), Dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and Transmission electron microscopy (TEM).

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.77-86
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• 2002

Surfactant enhanced in-situ soil flushing was performed to remediate the soil and groundwater at an oil contaminated site, where had been used as a military vehicle repair area for 40 years. A section from the contaminated site (4.5 m $\times$ 4.5 m $\times$ 6.0 m) was selected for the research, which was composed of heterogeneous sandy and silt-sandy soils with average $K_d$ of 2.0$\times$$10^{-4}$cm/sec. Two percent of sorbitan monooleate (POE 20) and 0.07% of iso-prophyl alcohol were mixed for the surfactant solution and 3 pore volumes of surfactant solution were injected to remove oil from the contaminated section. Four injection wells and two extraction wells were built in the section to flush surfactant solution. Water samples taken from extraction wells and the storage tank were analyzed on a gas-chromatography (GC) for TPH concentration in the effluent with different time. Five pore volumes of solution were extracted while TPH concentration in soil and groundwater at the section were below the Waste Water Discharge Limit (WWDL). The effluent TPH concentration from wells with only water flushing was below 10 ppm. However, the effluent concentration using surfactant solution flushing increased to 1751 ppm, which was more than 170 times compared with the concentration with only water flushing. Total 18.5 kg of oil (TPH) was removed from the soil and groundwater at the section. The concentration of heavy metals in the effluent solution also increased with the increase of TPH concentration, suggesting that the surfactant enhanced in-situ flushing be available to remove not only oil but heavy metals from contaminated sites. The removal efficiency of surfactant enhanced in-situ flushing was investigated at the real contaminated site in Korea. Results suggest that in-situ soil flushing could be a successful process to remediate contaminated sites distributed in Korea.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.416-422
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• 2011

In this study, the effect of cosurfactant on the phase equilibrium and dynamic behavior was studied in systems containing NP7 nonionic surfactant solutions and nonpolar hydrocarbon oils. All cosurfactants used during this study such as n-pentanol, n-octanol and n-decanol acted as a hydrophobic additive and thus promoted the transition from an oil in water (O/W) microemulsion (${\mu}E$) in equilibrium with an excess oil phase to a three-phase region containing excess water, excess oil, and a middle-phase microemulsion and further to a water in oil (W/O) ${\mu}E$ in equilibrium with the excess water phase. The transition temperature was found to decrease with both increases in the chain length and amount of addition of a cosurfactant. Dynamic behavior studies under O/W ${\mu}E$ conditions showed that an oil drop size decreased with time due to the solubilization into micelles. On the other hand, both the spontaneous emulsification of water into the oil phase and the expansion of oil drop were observed under W/O ${\mu}E$ conditions because of the diffusion of surfactant and water into the oil phase. Under conditions of a three-phase region including a middle-phase ${\mu}E$, both the rapid solubilization and emulsification of the oil into aqueous solutions were found mainly due to the existence of ultra-low interfacial tension. Dynamic interfacial tension measurements have been found to be in a good agreement with dynamic behavior results.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.5-13
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• 2010

The research is intended to develop and verify a biological complex soil treatment process to treat and restore soil and groundwater which is contaminated with oil, heavy metals, and nutrients through experiments with the series of treatment process such as bioreactor, rolled pipe type of contact oxidation system(RPS), and chemical processing system. 5 microbial strains were separated and selected through experiment, whose soil purification efficiency was excellent, and it was noted that anion- and nonion-series of complex agent was most excellent as a surfactant for effectively separating oils from soils. Method to mix and apply selected microbes after treating the surfactant in the contaminated soil was most effective. The removal efficiencies of total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH)-contaminated soil about 5,000mg/L and above 10,000mg/L were approximatly 90.0% for 28 days and 90.7% for 81 days by soil remediation system and the average removal efficiencies of BOD, $COD_{Mn}$, SS, T-N, and T-P in leachate were 90.6, 73.0, 91.9, 73.8, 65.7% by the bioreactor and RPS. The removal efficiency was above 99.0% by chemical processing system into cohesive agents.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.769-777
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• 2002

Using four components - nonionic surfactants, water, hydrocarbon oil and an alcohol as cosurfactant, 12 types of cleaning agents were prepared, and their physical properties such as surface tension, viscosity, electroconductivity and phase stability were measured. As the formulated cleaning agents have low surface tensions(30.5-31.1 dyne/cm) and low viscosities (1.6-7.2 c.p.), they are satisfied with the general physical properties of water-in-oil(W/O) microemulsions for their industrial use. They showed a tendency that their temperature range for stable one-phase microemulsion decreased in accordance with the increase of alcohol/surfactant(A/S) ratio in the formulations. However, the temperature range of one-phase microemulsion was much more affected by hydrophilic lipophillic balance(HLB) value of the nonionic surfactant which increased its temperature range and it increased in accordance with the higher HLB value in the formulations. And the maximum content of water which can keep stable one-phase W/O microemulsion was measured at each sample. In addition, their temperature range for stable one-phase microemulsion was also measured. It was confirmed that the selection of surfactant type was very important for formulating a cleaning agent, since the W/O microemulsion system with the nonionic surfactant of the lower HLB value showed better cleaning efficacy that of the higher HLB value for abietic acid as a soil, which was used for preparing a rosin-type flux. In the formulated cleaning agents with the increase of A/S ratio in the formulations, however, there was no significant difference in cleaning efficacy. It was investigated that the differences of their cleaning efficacy was affected by the change of the condition of temperature and sonicating frequency as important factors in the industrial cleaning. That is, the higher, their cleaning temperature and the lower, their sonicating frequency, the more increased, their cleaning efficacy. Furthermore, using optical instruments like UV/Visable Spectrophotometer and FT-IR Spectrometer, their cleaning efficacy for abietic acid was measured. The removal of soil from the contaminated rinse water was measured by gravity separation method in the rinse bath. As a result, the cleaning agent system having the nonionic surfactant of HLB value 6.4 showed over 85% water-oil separation efficacy at over $25^{\circ}C$. Therefore, it was demonstrated in this work that the formulating cleaning agents were very effective for cleaning and economical in the possible introduction of water recycling system.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.153-164
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• 1999

The solubilization of BTEX was evaluated in aqueous surfactant solutions with and without several additives. Anionic surfactant(Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate, SDS) and nonionic surfactants (NEODOL(equation omitted)25-3 and $SOFTANOL\circledR-90$ were used as test surfactants. The effects of surfactant HLB(Hydrophile-Lipophile Balance) Number and hydrocarbon molar volume and polarity of BTEX on the MSR(Molar Solubilization Ratio), micelle-water partition coefficient of BTEX, and CMC(C,itical Micelle Concentration) were investigated. Optimizing treatment conditions applicable to enhanced solubilization was also studied by manupulating salinity or electrolyte control with additives of ethyl alcohol, hydrotrope, and electrolyte solution. The most effective surfactant for solubilization was found $SOFTANOL\circledR-90$, since HLB number of 13.6 is similar to those values of BTEX ranging between 11.4 and 12.2, which was also proved experimentally. Ethyl alchohol of 3% was the most effective additives in reducing CMC and improving solubilization among the conditions using SDS, NEODOL(equation omitted)25-3, and $SOFTANOL\circledR-90$ with three additives. The partitioning of BTEX between surfactant micelles and aqueous solutions was characterized by a mole fraction micelle-phase/aqueous phase partion coefficient, $K_m$. Values of log $K_m$. for BTEX compounds in surfactant solutions of this study range from 2.95 to 3.76(100mM SDS) and 2.95 to 3.49(117mM $SOFTANOL\circledR-90$. Log $K_m$ appears to be a linear function of log $K_{ow}$ for SDS and $SOFTANOL\circledR-90$. A knowledge of partitioning of BTEX in aqueous surfactant system can be a prerequisite for the understanding of the behavior of hydrophobic organic compounds in soil-water systems in which surfactants play a role in remediation of contaminated soil and facilitated transport.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Hazard Mitigation
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• v.1 no.3 s.3
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• pp.83-92
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• 2001

Field investigations for subsurface soil and groundwater at a gas station showed that the site was severely contaminated and even petroleum compounds as free liquid state were observed. Pilot-scale soil flushing and soil vapor extraction process(SVE) were applied to evaluate the effectiveness of pollutants removal. Surfactant solution, Tween 80, was used to enhance the solubility of petroleum compounds and resulted in about 10 times increase on TPH(Total Petroleum Hydrocarbon) concentration. As for SVE method, maximum concentration of TPH and BTEX reached within 24 hours of extraction and then continuously decreased. Considerations on the groundwater level and the kinetic limitation for volatilization of contaminants have to be taken into account for the effective application of SVE process.

• Clean Technology
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.302-307
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• 2017

This study was conducted to evaluate the feasibility of in situ soil flushing for TPH-contaminated soil remediation with column test. The soil texture of the soil was sand and the initial TPH concentration was $9,369mg\; kg^{-1}$. 0.1% Tween-80 was selected as surfactant solution. And the acrylic and the glass syringe columns were used as reactors. In the acrylic column test, 35% of the initial TPH was removed in 1 PV of flushing and approximately 40% in 5 PV and finally 7 PV showed about 60%. The glass column test showed 3 ~ 12% higher removal efficiency than that of acrylic test until 5 PV of flushing. However, there was no difference in TPH removal efficiency when 7 PV of surfactant was finally flushed. Both of alum only and alum+polymer mixed surfactants showed also the best coagulation efficiency in $150mg\;L^{-1}$ of concentraion. When Tween 80 was newly dissolved in 0.1% to the recovered solution after the coagulation treatment, the removal efficiency was increased from 32.0% to 41.0% in comparison to the new 0.1% Tween 80 solution without reuse by coagulation treatment.