• Carbon letters
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.121-130
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• 2011

Public concern has recently increased over the potential risk of toxic elements emitted from anthropogenic sources. Among these, mercury has drawn special attention owing to its increasing level of bioaccumulation in the environment and in the food chain, with potential risks for human health. This paper presents an overview of research related to mercury control technology and identifies areas requiring additional research and development. It critically reviews measured mercury emissions progress in the development of promising control technologies, including catalytic oxidation, sorbent injection, photochemistry oxidation, and air pollution control devices.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.268-277
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• 2012

Objectives: 1) To determine mercury levels in urine samples from garbage workers in Southern Thailand, and 2) to describe the association between work characteristics, work positions, behavioral factors, and acute symptoms; and levels of mercury in urine samples. Methods: A case-control study was conducted by interviewing 60 workers in 5 hazardous-waste-management factories, and 60 matched non-exposed persons living in the same area of Southern Thailand. Urine samples were collected to determine mercury levels by cold-vapor atomic absorption spectrometer mercury analyzer. Results: The hazardous-waste workers' urinary mercury levels (10.07 ${\mu}g/g$ creatinine) were significantly higher than the control group (1.33 ${\mu}g/g$ creatinine) (p < 0.001). Work position, duration of work, personal protective equipment (PPE), and personal hygiene, were significantly associated with urinary mercury level (p < 0.001). The workers developed acute symptoms - of head-aches, nausea, chest tightness, fatigue, and loss of consciousness at least once a week - and those who developed symptoms had significantly higher urinary mercury levels than those who did not, at p < 0.05. A multiple regression model was constructed. Significant predictors of urinary mercury levels included hours worked per day, days worked per week, duration of work (years), work position, use of PPE (mask, trousers, and gloves), and personal hygiene behavior (ate snacks or drank water at work, washed hands before lunch, and washed hands after work). Conclusion: Changing garbage workers' hygiene habits can reduce urinary mercury levels. Personal hygiene is important, and should be stressed in education programs. Employers should institute engineering controls to reduce urinary mercury levels among garbage workers.

• Solar Energy
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.46-53
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• 1985

Hydrogenated amorphous silicon solar cells which are fabricated by photo-chemical vapor deposition (photo-CVD) system has been investigated. In the photo-CVD system which consists of three separate reaction chambers, low-pressure mercury lamp has been used as a light source. The main reactant ($Si_2H_6/He$) gases which are premixed with a small amount of mercury vapor in a mercury-vaporizer kept at $50^{\circ}C$ have been used. Using $C_2H_2$ and $SiH_2(CH_3)_2$ as the carbon source, p-type wide band gap a-SiC:H films have been obtained. The result has been found that the undoped layers of the pin/substrate solar cells are influenced by the residual impurities, such as phosphorus and boron during the deposition process. By minimizing the effect of the impurities in the i-layer and optimizing conditions at the p-layer and p/i interface, the energy conversion efficiency of 9.61 % under AM-1 ($100mW/Cm^2$) has been achieved for pin/substrate solar cells illuminated through their p-layers, using the three separate reaction chamber apparatus. It is expected that a-SiC:H solar cells with the energy conversion efficiency over 10% have been fabricated by Photo-CVD method.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.495-500
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• 2008

The amount of vapor mercury for the generation of glow discharge plasma has been calculated in a fine tube fluorescent lamp having a mixed gas of Ne+Ar including a mercury. When the ionization of atom is considered by the collision between neutral atoms (Ne, Ar, Hg) and electrons of energy $kT_e{\sim}1\;eV$, the density of vapor mercury atom has been obtained as $n(Hg){\sim}3.43{\times}10^{22}m^{-3}$ for the plasma density $n_o{\sim}10^{17}m^{-3}$. In the fluorescent lamps of out diameter 4 mm used for $32{\sim}42$-inch LCD-TVs having a mixture gas of Ne(95%)+Ar(5%) with the pressure of 50 Torr, the quantity of vapor mercury for the glow discharge has been caculated as 0.02{\sim}0.08\;mg$.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.11-21
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• 1989

Atmospheric gaseous mercury was automatically measured by a mercury air monitor (Mercury monitor AM-1). The sample air was led to a scrubber and washed with buffer solution, and mercury was trapped with gold coated chromosorb P(AW) was successively eluted by heating the chromosorb and then detected by the cold vapor atomic absorption spectrophotometry. $SO_2, TSP, NO_x, CO, THC$. and some of meteorological factors were also measured simultaneously with mercury. A significant correlation between the concentration of mercury and those of 2,513 measurements, gaseous mercury concentration ranged from 4.73 to 112.8 $ng/m^3$ with an annual mean of 14.7$ng/m^3$ in urban area. At this place there was a clear seasonal variation with a maximuminDecember-January and aminimum in March-June. A secondary maximum existed in August to September. THe seasonal variation was found that the gaseous mercury in ambient air has a tendency to become low in spring and high in winter. Namely, the average of concentration in winter was about two times, 19.2 $ng/m^3$, higher than that in spring. In Seoul mercury levels on some months mainly Septermber-October increase with increasing relative humidity of the atmosphere. In Olympic park air levels were 8.2 (range 4.4-23.7)$ng/m^3$ with an coefficients of variation of 0.34 and in Seoul sports complex those were 7.7 (rnage 4.4-25.5) $ng/m^3$ with an coefficients of variation of 0.38 within the Seoul olympiad holding period of time. A significant diurnal mercury variation occurs both at the measuring sites and in the period of observation.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.198-207
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• 1994

In order to evaluate the effectiveness of environmental intervention of work place, metal mercury concentration in air and in urine of the total 43 workers for 3years from December 1991 to October 1993 in a fluorescent lamp manufacturing industry exposed to mercury, was measured before and after implementation of controls such as establishing exhaust ventilation at the department of exhaustion, coating the floor of work place with epostane, cleaning of the floor, improved housekeeping, and etc. The results were as follows. 1. Before the intervention(December 1991) 39.0% exceeded metal mercury Threshold Limit Value(TLV, $0.05mg/m^3$). After the intervention(October 1993) 10.0% exceeded TLV and geometric mean of mercury in air was $0.1mg/m^3$, and showed effectiveness rate of intervention to be 74.4% 2. After the intervention, geometric means of mercury concentrations in air were 0.013, $0.019mg/m^3$ and showed effectiveness rate of intervention to be 76.6%, 65.5% in A factory(right tube lamp)and at exhaustion department, respectively, A follow up survey fround statistically significant reductions in mercury concetration in air three years later. 3. Mercury concentration in urine of 11 workers(29.7%) exceeded warning level of $100{\mu}l/l$ before the intervention. After the intervention, of 3workers(8.8%) exceeded warning level and geometric mean of mercury concentration($26.5{\mu}l/l$) in urine was 2.4 times than that of before the intervention. Geometric means of mercury concentrations in urine of workers at exhaustion department, at sealing and aging department were 44.0, $77.7{\mu}l/l$, respectively and they decreased 2.3, 3.2 times than that of before the intervention.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.71-80
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• 2001

Blood and urine mercury level of three workers were monitored during 60~80 days after high exposure to mercury at the silver refining plant. Mercury was used to form silver-mercury amalgam from plating sludge. Workers were exposed to mercury about 70 days at the several processes, such as hand held weaving, vibration table, and heating from the furnace. mercury was analysed by atomic absorption spectroscopy-vapor generation technique. Recovery from the biological sample was 95.51% and pooled standard deviation was 0.033. At the time of study, there was no work at the workplace. So, airborne mercury concentration was measured with area sampling 5 days after the work, ranged from 0.1459 to 1.2351 mg/㎥(Arithmatic mean 0.4711 mg/㎥, Geometric mean 0.3566 mg/㎥) at the inside of the plant, that is far above the ACGIH's TLV(0.025 mg/㎥) and ranged from 0.0073 to 0.0330 mg/㎥ at the outdoor. Blood mercury levels at the beginning of the monitoring were 4~14 times greater than the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists Biological Exposure Index(ACGIH BEI, 15 ug/L). Blood mercury levels were decreased logarithmically, that is, rapidly at the high level and slowly at the low level but sustained above the level of the ACGIH BEI 60~80 days after the work. Urine mercury levels at the beginning of the monitoring were 8~16 times greater than the ACGIH BEI(35 ug/g creatinine). Urine mercury levels were decreased logarithmically, but correlation between urine level and off-days were lower than those of blood. Decreasing pattern of blood mercury levels were little affected than that of urine levels when the chelating agent, D-penicillamine, was administered. There was correlation between blood mercury level and urine mercury level(0.81~0.83) but it didn\`t mean that the highest blood mercury level corresponded the highest urine mercury level. In our study, Case 1 always shows the highest level in urine but case 3 always shows the highest level in blood. Creatinine correction represented better correlations between urine mercury levels and blood levels, and between urine levels and off-days rather than by urine volume. Spot urine sampling had a wide variation than that of whole day urine sampling. So, We recommend spot urine sampling for screening and whole day urine sampling for exact diagnosis.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.183-189
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• 2007

We have investigated the oxidation of gas phase elemental mercury using dielectric barrier discharge (DBD). In the DBD process, active species such as $O_3$, OH, O and $HO_2$ are generated by collisions between electrons and gas molecules. Search active species convert elemental mercury into mercury oxide which is deposited into the wall of DBD reactor because of its low vapor pressure. The oxidation efficiency of elemental mercury has been decreased from 60 to 30% by increasing the initial concentration of the elemental mercury from 72 to $655{\mu}g/Nm^3$. The gas retention time at the DBD reactor has showed the little effect on the oxidation efficiency. The more oxygen concentration has induced the more oxidation of elemental mercury, whereas there has been no appreciable oxidation within pure $N_2$ discharge. It has indicated that oxygen atom and ozone, generated in air condition determine the oxidation of elemental mercury.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2005.07a
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• pp.388-389
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• 2005

In this paper, the electric properties of mercury Iodide multi-layer samples has been investigated. We measured and analyzed their performance parameters such as the X-ray sensitivity and dark-current for a mercury Iodide multi-layer X-ray detector with a dielectric layer. The digital X-ray image detector can be constructed by integrating photoconduction multi-layer that dielectric layer has characteristics of low dark-current, high X-ray sensitivity. However this process has found to have complexity on the performance of the sample. We have investigate dielectric layer that it substitute dielectric layer for HgO(Mercury Oxide). We have employed two approaches for producing the mercury Iodide sample : 1) Physical Vapor Deposition(PVD) and 2) Particle-In-Binder(PIB). In this paper fabricated by PIB Method with thicknesses ranging from approximately 180um to 240um and we could produce high-quality samples for each technique particular application. As results, the dielectric materials such as HgO between the dielectric layer and the top electrode may reduce the dark-current of the samples. Mercury Iodide multi-layer having HgO has characteristics of low dark-current, high X-ray sensitivity and simple processing. So we can acquired a enhanced signal to noise ratio. In this paper offer the method can reduce the dark-current in the X-ray detector.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.11-16
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• 2009

Mercury Iodide as good sensitivity at radiation and has an easy peculiarity that operates at low voltage for other photoconductors(a-Se, a-Si, Ge, etc) Based on this characteristic, we studied about an efficiency of the digital x-ray detector in acccordance with the thickness of photoconductor. To solve the problem that is difficult to make a large area film using PVD(Physical Vapor Deposition)method, we used a PIB(Particle In Binder)method. To make a binder paste, we used a PVB(Polyvinylbutyral) as a binder and a DGME(Diethylene Glycol Monobutyl Ether), DGMEA(Diethylene Glycol Monobutyl Ether Acetate) as a solvent. Using this binder paste, we made a polycrystal mercury iodide film that has an each thickness. To evaluate the electrical properties of this films, we measured a darkcurrent, sensitivity and SNR(Signal to Noise Ratio). Mercury iodide film of the 200um thickness has good electrical properties as a result of the measurement. From this result there is a good chance that replace the existing a-Se(Amnorphous seleinum; a-se) with the mercury iodide.