• Clean Technology
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.131-137
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• 2004

Due to the low biodegradability of dyes, conventional biological wastewater treatment systems are inefficient in treating textile wastewater. In this study, white rot fungus, Trametes versicolor KCTC 16781, were investigated for the decolorization of Reactive black 5 solutions. This fungus was able to degrade the dye solutions by the ligninolytic enzymes (laccase and MnP) produced. The enzyme activity remained constant until the end of reaction. The combined process of biological treatment and ceramic membrane showed better efficiency for decolorization and TOC removal than each single process.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.29 no.8
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• pp.922-929
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• 2007

The complete oxidation of ammonia to nitrate is a distinctive two-step process divided into the oxidation of ammonia to nitrite(nitritation) by Nitrosomonas and the oxidation of nitrite to nitrate(nitratation) by Nitrobacter. The nitrogen removal via nitrite accumulation offers several advantages such as saving costs for aeration, saving carbon source and finally reduction of sludge discharge. In this work a suspended bioreactor coupled with membrane filtration(MBR) was used to find the process conditions of nitrite build-up. The MBR enables to reach sufficient nitrifying bacteria in the bioreactor, although the autotrophic bacteria can be easily washed out due to their lower growth rate. The dissolved oxygen concentration $c'_{O2}$ and ammonia concentration $c_{NH3}$ in the reactor were varied and investigated as parameters for nitrite accumulation. As a result the higher ammonia concentration in the reactor is very effective for starting nitrite build-up and the effect was strengthened in combination with lower dissolved oxygen concentration. With lower $c'_{O2}<0.3$ $mgL^{-1}$ $O_2$ and high $c_{NH3}=6.3\sim14.9$ $mgL^{-1}$ $NH_3N$ the 74% of the nitrite accumulation was achieved. Specially, it was found that the nitrite accumulation could occur not only in biofilm reactor as many references showed but also in the membrane bioreactor carried out in this study.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.323-328
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• 2016

Pressurized membrane used for side-stream MBR process requires fouling control strategy both for normal and abnormal operation conditions for stable operation of the facilities. In this study, $85m^3/day$ of pilot-scale side-stream MBR process was constructed for the evaluation of fouling mitigation by air bubble injection into the membrane module. In addition, fouling phenomena at abnormal operation conditions of low influent and/or loading rate were also investigated. Injection of air bubble was found to be effective in delaying transmembrane pressure (TMP) increase mainly due to scouring effect on the membrane surface, resulting in expanded filtration cycle at a high flux of $40L/m^2{\cdot}h$ (LMH). At abnormal operation condition, injection of PACl (53 mg/L as Al) into the bioreactor showed 19% reduction of TMP increase. However, inhibition of nitrifying bacteria by continuous PACl injection was observed from batch experiments. In contrast, injection of powdered activated carbon (PAC, 0.6 g/L) was able to maintain the initial TMP of $0.2kg/cm^2$ for 5 days at the abnormal conditions. It may have been caused from the adsorption of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), which was known to be excessively released during growth inhibition condition and act as the major foulants in MBR operations.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.565-572
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• 2011

The effects of chemical pretreatments on the excess sludge production in the membrane-coupled bioreactor were investigated. In addition, their effects on membrane fouling were also evaluated. Two membrane bioreactors were operated. In one reactor, a part of the mixed liquor was t reated with NaOH and ozone gas consecutively and was returned to the reactor. T he f lowrate of the chemical pretreatment stream was 1.5% of the influent flowrate. During the 200days of operation, the MLSS level in the bioreactor with mixed liquor pretreatment was maintained relatively constant at the range of 8,000 ~ 10,000$mg/{\ell}$ while it increased steadily up to 26,000 $mg/{\ell}$ in the absence of the pretreatment. Each reactor was equipped with two laboratory membrane modules where the flux for each module was 20, and 30 ${\ell}/m^2{\cdot}h$, respectively. With pretreatment, almost constant transmembrane pressure(TMP) was observed throughout the operation at the flux of 20 ${\ell}/m^2{\cdot}h$. Without pretreatment the membrane module at the same flux could also be operated at relatively stable condition. However, as the MLSS increases up to 25,000 $mg/{\ell}$, a fast TMP increase was observed. In conclusion, a complete control of excess sludge production in the membrane-coupled bioreactor was possible without significant deterioration of the treated water quality. In addition, it was shown that stable operation in terms of TMP is possible with sludge pretreatment and recirculation.

• Advances in environmental research
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.39-52
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• 2018

Direct membrane filtration (DMF) of wastewater has many advantages over conventional biological wastewater treatment processes. DMF is not only compact, but potentially energy efficient due to the lack of biological aeration. It also produces more biosolids that can be used to produce methane gas through anaerobic digestion. Most of ammoniacal nitrogen in wastewater is preserved in effluent and is used as fertilizer when effluent is recycled for irrigation. In this study, a technical feasibility of DMF was explored. Organic and nitrogen removal efficiencies were compared between DMF and membrane bioreactor (MBR). Despite the extremely high F/V ratio, e.g., $14.4kg\;COD/m^3/d$, DMF provided very high COD removal efficiencies at ~93%. Soluble microbial products (SMP) and extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) were less in DMF sludge, but membrane fouling rate was far greater than in MBR. The diversity of microbial community in DMF appeared very narrow based on the morphological observation using optical microscope. On the contrary, highly diverse microbial community was observed in the MBR. Microorganisms tended to form jelly globs and attach on reactor wall in DMF. FT-IR study revealed that the biological globs were structurally supported by feather-like materials made of secondary amines. Confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) study showed microorganisms mainly resided on the external surface of microbial globs rather than the internal spaces.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.59-63
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• 2012

This paper proposes a modified Ludzack-Ettinger (MLE) type membrane bioreactor (MBR) as a method of treatment for wastewater from food waste disposer. Micro-membrane filtration allows for an extremely low concentration of suspended solids in the effluent. The effluent of the reactor in question is characterized by a relatively high level of non-biodegradable organics, containing a substantial amount of soluble microbial products and biomass. Results obtained in this paper by measurement of membrane fouling are consistent with biomass concentration in the reactor, as opposed to chemical oxygen demand (COD). The MLE process is shown to be effective for the treatment of wastewater with a high COD/N ratio of 20, resulting in are markedly high total nitrogen removal efficiency. Denitrification could be improved at a higher internal recycle ratio. Despite the low concentration of influent phosphorus, the phosphorus concentration of the outflow is seen to be relatively high. This is because outflow phosphorous concentration is related to COD consumption, and the process operates at along solids retention time.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.19 no.9
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• pp.1028-1033
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• 2009

In this study, the dynamics of living cells (LC) and dead cells (DC) in a laboratory-scale biofilm membrane bioreactor for waste gas treatment was examined. Toluene was used as a model pollutant. The bacterial cells were enumerated as fluoromicroscopic counts during a 140 operating day period using BacLight nucleic acid staining in combination with epifluorescence and confocal laser scanning microscopy (CSLM). Overall, five different phases could be distinguished during the biofilm development: (A) cell attachment, (B) pollutant limitation, (C) biofilm establishment and colonization, (D) colonized biofilm, and (E) biofilm erosion. The bioreactor was operated under different conditions by applying different pollutant concentrations. An optimum toluene removal of 89% was observed at a loading rate of 14.4 kg $m^{-3}d^{-1}$. A direct correlation between the biodegradation rate of the reactor and the dynamics of biofilm development could be demonstrated. This study shows the first description of biofilm development during gaseous toluene degradation in MBR.

• 한국생물공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.448-448
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• 2005

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.737-744
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• 2007

Recently, one of the most interesting topic in the field of wastewater treatment is the disposal of excess sludge. The new concept of excess sludge reduction with recirculation of solubilized sludge via effective microorganisms for cell disruption within the wastewater treatment process has been developed in this study. The alkalophiles for degradation of sludge cell wall were isolated as Exiguobacterium sp., which could be more effectively solubilized sludge in the anaerobic condition. The SCOD of solubilized excess sludge by Exiguobacterium sp. was up to about 2,000mg/L and average TN and TP concentration of solubilized component were 117mg/L and 58mg/L, respectively and C/N ratio was more than 17. To investigate the effects of solubilized sludge by alkalophiles on excess sludge reduction and nutrient removal efficiency, the pilot plant of $DF^{(S)}-MBR$ process, combined with membrane bioreactor and sludge solubilization tank, was operated. In the control run(without sludge solubilization), the daily sludge production was about 4.54 kgMLVSS/day. However, in the $DF^{(S)}-MBR$(with sludge solubilization), the daily sludge production was decreased to 1.39kgMLVSS/day. The effluent quality satisfied the effluent regulation in both cases. Furthermore, the $DF^{(S)}-MBR$ showed relatively better TN removal efficiency in spite of high influent loading. So we concluded that the solubilized excess sludge by alkalophiles was effectively degraded in the MBR process as the carbon source and 70% of sludge reduction efficiency can be achieved.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.200-208
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• 2005

In this study, a new submerged membrane bioreactor process packed with granular sulfur (MBR-GS) was operated to identify the biological nitrogen removal behaviors with plating wastewater containing high-strength $NO_3{^-}$ concentration. The continuous denitrification was carried out at $20^{\circ}C$ with various nitrogen loading rates using synthetic wastewater, which composed of $NO_3{^-}$ and $HCO_3{^-}$, but also actual plating wastewater, which was collected from the effluent of the H metal plating company. As a result, high-rate denitrification in the range of $0.8kg\;NO_3{^-}-N/m^3\;day$ was accomplished at nitrogen loading rate of $0.9kg\;NO_3{^-}-N/m^3\;day$ using synthetic wastewater. Also, higher-rate denitrification with actual plating wastewater was achieved up to $0.91kg\;NO_3{^-}-N/m^3\;day$ at the loading rate of $1.11kg\;NO_3{^-}-N/m^3\;day$. Additionally, continuous filtration was possible during up to 30 days without chemical cleaning in the range of 20 cmHg of transmembrane pressure. On the basis of the proposed stoichiometry, ${SO_4}^{2-}$ production could be estimated efficiently, while observed alkalinity consumption was somewhat lower than theoretical value. Consequently, a new process, MBR-GS is capable of high-rate autotrophic denitrification by compulsive flux and expected to be utilized as an alternative of renovation techniques for nitrogen removal from not only plating wastewater but also municipal wastewater with low C/N ratio.