• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.105-119
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• 2012

Indigenous bacteria isolated from contaminated sites play important roles to remediate contaminated groundwater. Chromium has the most stable oxidation states. Cr(VI) is toxic, carcinogenic, and mobile, but Cr(III) is less toxic and immobile. In this study, indigenous microorganism (MMPH-0) was enriched from Cr(VI) contaminated groundwater, and identified by 16S rRNA gene analysis. Using MMPH-0, the effect of stimulating with e-donors (glucose, lactate, acetate, and no e-donor control), respiration conditions, biomass, tolerance, and geochemical changes on Cr(VI) reduction were investigated in batch experiments for 4 weeks. The changes of Cr(VI) concentration and geochemical conditions were monitored using UV-vis-spectrophotometer and Eh-pH meter. And the morphological and chemical characteristics of MMPH-0 and precipitates in the effluents were characterized by TEM-EDS and SEM-EDS analyses. MMPH-0 (Enterobacter aerogenes) was able to tolerate up to 2000 mg/L Cr(VI) and reduce Cr(VI) under aerobic and anaerobic conditions. MMPH-0 performed faster and higher efficiency of Cr(VI) reduction with electron donors (over 70% after 1 week with e-donor, 10-20% after 4 weeks without e-donor). The changes of Eh-pH in effluents showing the tendency from oxidizing to reducing condition and a bit of acidic change in pH due to microbial oxidation of organic matters donating electrons and protons suggested the roles of MMPH-0 on Cr(VI) in the contaminated water catalyzing to transit geochemical stable zone for more stable $Cr(OH)_3$ or Cr(III) precipitates. TEM/SEM-EDS analyses of MMPH-0 and precipitates indicate direct and indirect Cr(VI) reduction: extracellular polymers capturing Cr component outside cells. These results suggested diverse indigenous bacteria and their biogeochemical reactions might enhance more effective and feasible remediation technology of redox sensitive heavy metals in metal-contaminated in groundwater.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.33 no.10
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• pp.709-716
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• 2011

Effect of inorganic coagulants dosing on the performance of electro-chemical process was studied when treating hospital wastewater having low electrolyte concentration. It is thought that adding inorganic coagulants caused increase in concentration of electrolyte and this caused increase in free chloride concentration and consequently, caused increase in indirect oxidation effect. Thus, COD removal efficiencies more than doubled in percentage terms at the 2 hrs of reaction time and current density of $1.76A/dm^2$ compared with the results obtained from the parallel experiments without adding inorganic coagulants. T-N removal efficiencies approximately doubled in percentage terms at the 2 hrs of reaction time and 700 ppm of coagulants addition and applied current density of $1.76A/dm^2$ due to the increase of free residual chlorine such as HOCl caused by increase of electrolyte concentration through the addition of inorganic coagulants. Under the same experimental condition, more than 90% of T-P removal efficiencies was obtained. The reason can be explained that increase of chemical adsorption rate between phosphate and insoluble metal compounds caused by dissolved oxygen generated from anode by the increased electrolyte concentration through inorganic coagulants addition make a major role in improving T-P removal efficiencies. It can be concluded that inorganic coagulants addition as the supplemental agent of electrolyte is effective way in improving organic and nutrient salt removal efficiency when treating hospital wastewater having low electrolyte concentration.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.270-274
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• 2017

Formic acid has been known as one of key sources of hydrogen. Among various monometallic catalysts, hydrogen can be efficiently produced on Pd catalyst. However, the catalytic activity of Pd is gradually reduced by the blocking of active sites by CO, which is formed from the unwanted indirect oxidation of formic acid. One of promising solutions to overcome such issue is the design of alloy catalyst by adding other metal into Pd since alloying effect (such as ligand and strain effect) can increase the chance to mitigate CO poisoning issue. In this study, we have investigated formic acid deposition on the bimetallic $Pd/Pd_3Fe$ core-shell nanocatalyst using DFT (density functional theory) calculation. In comparison to Pd catalyst, the activation energy of formic acid dehydrogenation is greatly reduced on $Pd/Pd_3Fe$ catalyst. In order to understand the importance of alloying effects in catalysis, we decoupled the strain effect from ligand effect. We found that both strain effect and ligand effect reduced the binding energy of HCOO by 0.03 eV and 0.29 eV, respectively, compared to the pure Pd case. Our DFT analysis of electronic structure suggested that such decrease of HCOO binding energy is related to the dramatic reduction of density of state near the fermi level.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.282-291
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• 2018

The pristine fluorine-doped $SnO_2$ (abbreviated as FTO) inverse opal (IO) was developed using a 410 nm polystyrene bead template. The nanolayered copper tungsten oxide ($CuWO_4$) was decorated on the FTO IO film using a facile electrochemical deposition, subsequently followed by annealing at $500^{\circ}C$ for 90 min. The morphologies, crystalline structure, optical properties and photoelectrochemical characteristics of the FTO and $CuWO_4$-decorated FTO (briefly denoted as $FTO/CuWO_4$) IO film were investigated by field emission scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, UV-vis spectroscopy and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, showing FTO IO in the hexagonally closed-pack arrangement with a pore diameter and wall thickness of about 300 nm and 20 nm, respectively. Above this film, the $CuWO_4$ was electrodeposited by controlling the cycling number in cyclic voltammetry, suggesting that the $CuWO_4$ formed during 4 cycles (abbreviated as $CuWO_4$(4 cycles)) on FTO IO film exhibited partial distribution of $CuWO_4$ nanoparticles. Additional distribution of $CuWO_4$ nanoparticles was observed in the case of $FTO/CuWO_4$(8 cycles) IO film. The $CuWO_4$ layer exhibits triclinic structure with an indirect band gap of approximately 2.5 eV and shows the enhanced visible light absorption. The photoelectrochemical (PEC) behavior was evaluated in the 0.5 M $Na_2SO_4$ solution under solar illumination, suggesting that the $FTO/CuWO_4$(4 cycles) IO films exhibit a photocurrent density ($J_{sc}$) of $0.42mA/cm^2$ at 1.23 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE, denoted as $V_{RHE}$), while the FTO IO and $FTO/CuWO_4$(8 cycles) IO films exhibited a $J_{sc}$ of 0.14 and $0.24mA/cm^2$ at $1.23V_{RHE}$, respectively. This difference can be explained by the increased visible light absorption by the $CuWO_4$ layer and the favorable charge separation/transfer event in the cascading band alignment between FTO and $CuWO_4$ layer, enhancing the overall PEC performance.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.921-929
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• 2004

Dietary intake of whole grains, vegetable and fruit is known to reduce the degenerative chronic diseases, such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Antioxidative and antimutagenic effects of the ethanol extract of Korean Millet, Buckwheat, Sorghum and Job's tears were examined by inhibition against iron-induced linoleate per-oxidation, DPPH (1,l-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl) radical generation and MDA-BSA (malondialdehyde-bovine serum albumin) conjugation, and Ames test using Salmonella. Buckwheat showed the strongest antioxidative effect in three different systems among these four grains, but it showed the lowest antimutagenic effect. Sorghum was the second to Buckwheat in iron-induced linoleate peroxidation inhibition activity and DPPH radical scavenging activity, and showed very good direct-antimutagenic effect in 2-Nitrofluorene treated Salmonella Typhimurium TA98 and indirect-antimutagenic effect in 2-Anthramine treated Salmonella Typhimurium TA98 and TA100 with hepatic S9 mixture. Millet showed the strongest antimutagenic effect in Salmonella Typhimurium TA98 and TA 100 with or without S9. Buckwheat contained the highest total flavonoids and polyphenols, 1.14 mg/g and 3.71 mg/g, respectively. Total flavonoid content in these four grains was negatively correlated with $IC_{50}$/ for DPPH radical scavenging antioxidative effect significantly (r=-0.9924, p=0.0076), but not with antimutagenic effect.

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.167-176
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• 2021

When producing recycled asphalt mix, it is important that the old binder of reclaimed asphalt pavement(RAP) should be well melted during blending in the mixer. The recycled asphalt mix is produced by instant mixing(IM) of all materials(RAP, virgin asphalt and new aggregates) all together in the mixer. However, in the same recycled mix, the binder around RAP aggregate was found to show higher oxidation level than the binder coated around the virgin aggregate because the old binder of RAP was not rejuvenated properly while instant mixing. The partially-rejuvenated RAP binder is assumed to be a high stiffness point in IM recycled mix. In this study, the stage mixing(SM) method was introduced; blending RAP and virgin asphalt for the first stage, and then mixing all together with hot new aggregates for the second stage. To compare the effect of the two mixing methods on moisture resistance of recycled mixes, a statistical t-test was performed between SM and IM using indirect tensile strength(ITS) and tensile strength ratio(TSR). Three conditioning methods were used; a 16-h freezing and then 24-h submerging, 48-h submerging, and 72-h submerging in 60℃ water. It was found that the TSR(=ITS_wet/ITS_dry) values of the mixes prepared by SM was clearly higher than the IM mixes, and coefficients of variation of SM mixes were lower than the IM mixes. It was also observed that the ITS_WET of SM was significantly different from the IM at α=0.05 level by statistical t-test. The ITS_WET of SM mix was reduced less than the IM mix in severer conditioned mixes. Therefore, it was concluded that the stage mixing method was an important blending technique for producing better-quality of recycled asphalt mixes, which would show higher moisture resistance than the recycled mixes produced by conventional instant mixing.