• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.117-126
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• 2019

Activated carbon is carbon produced from carbonaceous source materials, such as coconut shells, coals, and woods. In this study, an activated carbon production system was analyzed by carbonization and activation in terms of environmental impact and human health. The feedstock of wood wastes for the system reduced fossil fuel consumption and disposal costs. Life cycle assessment methodology was used to analyze the environmental impacts of the system, and the functional unit was one tonne of wood wastes. The boundary expansion method was applied to analyze the wood waste recycling process for activated carbon production. An environmental credit was quantified by avoided impact analysis. Specifically, greenhouse gases discharged from 1 kg of activated carbon production system by feeding wood wastes were evaluated. We found that this system reduced global warming potential of approximately $9.69E+00kg\;CO_2-eq$. compared to the process using coals. The environmental benefits for activated carbon production from wood wastes were analyzed in contrast to other disposal methods. The results showed that the activated carbon system using one tonne of wood wastes has an environmental benefit of $163kg\;CO_2-eq$. for reducing global warming potential in comparison with the same amount of wood wastes disposal by landfilling.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.83-91
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• 2014

The global community demands the reduction of environmental pollution such as greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide emissions. According to these requirements, the road construction project in the highest energy consuming industry is required the efficient way of reducing environmental pollution emissions. In this study, during the whole life cycle process, an environment impact assessment was performed for the several road construction projects in order to evaluate environmental stress through the road construction process. This study provides a proper process of environment impact assessment for life cycle assessment (LCA) analysis of road construction project, and figures the environmental stress regarding to the major construction materials for the case projects. In addition, this study conducted a sensitivity analysis for the key materials of environmental stress through the quantity analysis of major materials for the 1km section of a road construction. By this sensitivity analysis of total environmental stress change from the different volumes of constructing materials, it would be useful information for the environment impact assessment for the future road construction project.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.64-73
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• 2018

This study aims to analysis the environmental impact on waste catalyst recycling technology using entire life cycle assessment. Environmental impacts consist of the five categories of impacts: global warming, resource depletion, acidification, eutrophication, and photochemical oxide production. The waste catalyst recycling presently have a GWP 3.53 ton $CO_2$ equivalent/ton, a ADP 0.017 ton Sb equivalent/ton, a AP 0.051 $SO_2$ equivalent/ton, a EP 0.0092 $PO{_4}^{3-}$ equivalent/ton, a 0.0019 ton $C_2H_4$ equivalent/ton. The smelting reduction process is the greatest contributor to all categories of environmental impacts in waste catalyst recycling. Electricity used in the smelting reduction process is the major contributor of all impact categories.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.38 no.11
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• pp.589-595
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• 2016

This study evaluated the environmental impacts for landfill treatment of the wastewater treatment sludge (WTS) from petrochemical firms by life cycle assessment (LCA) and reviewed the impact reduction by landfill gas (LFG) utilization. The functional unit was 'landfill of 1 ton of WTS', and the system boundary included the process of input and treatment for WTS in landfill site. The impacts were high at landfill process (LP) and leachate treatment process (LTP). Global warming (GWP) and photochemical oxidants creation (POCP) were high at LP, while abiotic depletion (ADP), acidification (AP), eutrophication (EP), ozone depletion (ODP) were high at LTP. The major substances of various impact categories were crude oil (ADP), $NO_X$ (AP, EP), $CH_4$ (GWP, POCP), $Cl_2$ (ODP), respectively. The major factor of ADP, AP, EP was attributed from the generation of electricity used in LTP, and the methane within uncollected LFG was main factor of GWP and POCP. Therefore, electricity consumption reduction is identified to be an impact improvement option, and the flaring system installation or enhanced LFG recovery could be an alternative to reduce impacts. Among the various categories, GWP accounted the highest impact (${\geq}90%$) followed by ADP, POCP. In the avoidance impact resulted from the utilization of LFG, to substitute B-C oil or LNG showed the impact reduction of 32.7% and 12.0%, respectively.

• Explosives and Blasting
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.9-16
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• 2023

To compare the global warming impact of the TBM and NATM method, which are representative tunnel excavation methods, a life cycle assessment was performed for each method. Life cycle assessment should compare the sum of carbon emissions by considering the pre-manufacturing stage, product manufacturing stage, usage stage, and disposal stage. However, access to TBM (Tunnel Boring Machine) manufacturing and disposal data is limited, so I had no choice but to focus on the analysis for the usage stage. In general, carbon emissions during the pre-product manufacturing stage and product manufacturing stage often exceed 90% of carbon emissions throughout the entire process. Therefore, since it is difficult to achieve the analysis goal only by comparing the usage stage, the analysis scope was expanded, and carbon emissions for the process were calculated for the NATM method with access to manufacturing data. As a result of comparing the relative impact on global warming, the carbon emissions of the TBM method were found to be higher than those of the NATM method even though TBM method was only considered for the usage stage. So there it is, the NATM method can be seen as environmentally friendly in the future when considering the impact of climate change (global warming), which has recently attracted attention among environmental impact fields.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.71-86
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• 2016

This paper summarizes the results of a two-year-long research project conducted by the CTBUH on the life cycle assessment (LCA) of tall building structural systems. The research project was made possible thanks to a $300,000 contribution from ArcelorMittal and the support of some of the most important structural engineering firms and players in the tall building industry. The research analyzed all life phases of a tall building's structural system: the extraction and production of its materials, transportation to the site, construction operations, final demolition of the building, and the end-of-life of the materials. The impact of the building structure during the operational phase (i.e., impact on daily energy consumption, maintenance, and suitability to changes) was also investigated, but no significant impacts were identified during this phase.

• 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.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.61 no.1
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• pp.142-154
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• 2023

As the importance of the environment has been recognized worldwide, the need to calculate and reduce carbon emissions has been drawing an increasing attention throughout various industrial sections. Thereby the discipline of LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) involving raw material preparation, production processes, transportation and installation has been established. There is a clear research gap between the need and the practice for Korean Case of renewable energy industry, particularly wind power. To bridge the gap, this study conducted LCA research on wind power generation in the Korean area of Yeongdeok, an example of a domestic onshor wind power complex using SimaPro, which is the most widely used LCA system. As a result of the study, the energy recovery period (EPT) of one wind turbine is about 10 months, and the GHG emitted to generate power of 1 kwh is 15 g CO₂/kWh, which is competitive compared to other energy sources. In the environmental impact assessment by component, the results showed that the tower of wind turbines had the greatest impact on various environmental impact sectors. The experience gained in this study can be further used in strengthening the introduction of renewable energy and reducing the carbon emission in line with reducing climate change.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.515-522
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• 2014

In order to quantitatively evaluate the effect of fly ash (FA) as partial replacement of cement on the life-cycle environmental impact of concrete, a comprehensive database including 4023 laboratory mixes and 2120 plant mixes was analyzed. The environmental loads on the life-cycle assessment were quantitatively converted into environmental impact indicators through categorization, characterization, normalization and weighting process. The life-cycle environmental impacts of concrete could be classified into three categories including global warming, photochemical oxidant creation and abiotic resource depletion. Furthermore, these environmental impacts of concrete was decreased with the increase of the replacement level of FA and governed by the unit content of ordinary portland cement (OPC). As a result, simple equations to assess the environmental impact indicators could be formulated as a function of the unit content of binder and the replacement level of FA.

• Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.531-547
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• 2014

This study analyzed the effect of Greenhouse of wood pellet fuel conversing from Diesel. Analyzed through a life cycle assessment of greenhouse gas emissions of carbon dioxide for the environmental assessment, In evaluation of the Ministry of the Environment, analyzed through the life cycle assessment of carbon dioxide emissions of the greenhouse gas and, In the case of economic evaluation, we analyzed the investment payback period to the total revenue generated by each of the calculated incentive based on the RHI and institutions reduction projects a reduction of costs associated with the reduction of fuel costs.