• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Toxicology Conference
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• 2003.10b
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• pp.33-33
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• 2003

Organisms have evolved to use metal ions as cofactors for many proteins involved in critical biological processes. However, these metals are highly toxic when present in excess or if released in its free reactive form, and environmental contamination by non-physiological metals has been a concern for public health.(omitted)

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.1-11
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• 2006

Attempts were made to analyze the national policy of soil contamination prevention and management of inactive or abandoned metal (IAM) mines in Korea. This approach focused on legal systems and legislation, remediation technology development, and the arrangement or distribution of budgets pertaining to national policy since the mid 1990's. Prevention of Mining Damage and Recovery Act enacted. Defines the roles, responsibility and budget of the government when recovering mine damages. However, in 2005 there still remains to improve the national policy of soil contamination prevention and management of IAM mines. Analysis of national and industrialized foreign countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands suggest the following improvements: i) arranging distinct regulations between strict and non-strict liability criteria for potentially responsible parties; limiting innocent and non-strict liability depending on the period of incurred mining activity, ii) enhancing participation of local communities by enforcing law and legislation, iii) establishing a national database system of (potentially) IAM contaminated sites based on the Website-Geographic Information System, iv) carrying out site-specific risk assessments and remediation of IAM contaminated sites, v) preparation and distribution of clean-up fund at mine sites adequately, and vi) technology development for the cleaning of IAM contaminated sites; awarding positive incentives of a legal nature for participants applying newly developed technology in IAM mines.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.252-271
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• 2020

In this study, we investigated physical and chemical properties such as grain size, heavy metal pollution, magnetic properties, and their environmental impacts of road dusts (RD) collected from 14 sampling points in Daebul industrial Complex. Heavy metal concentrations in RD were in the order of Fe>Zn>Cu>Pb>Cr>Ni>As>Cd>Hg, and this pollution pattern was related to major industries and traffic activities in this area. The results of the correlation analysis between heavy metal elements and particle size in RD showed that Fe and all of analyzed heavy metals had a significant correlation with each other and metal concentrations had a significantly negative correlation (p<0.05). However, due to the input of large metal particles some heavy metal concentrations in the particle fraction of >1000 ㎛ were highest. Pollution load per unit area of this fraction was the highest among the grain size fractions. Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd, Pb levels in RD decreased and the levels of Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd, and Pb were reduced to 85 (As) -22 (Ni)% of the whole after removal of MFs fraction from RD. The mean heavy metal levels in the study area did not exceed the soil contamination guide value of Korea, indicating that heavy metal levels in RD were not a concern. However, at some sampling points, Zn concentrations were exceeded the soil contamination guide value for the 3rd areas of Korea and this result indicated that further studies of the impact of RD on the surrounding environment through re-suspension or non-point pollution, and of effective management methods are required.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.155-163
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• 1999

Heavy metal accumulation in living organisms through food-wed can give serious damage on physiological responses for vital activities. The initiation of heavy metal supposed to begin from the bio-accumulation of plants. To establish basic data fur heavy metal contents in plants at the area without artificial contamination, both woody and herb plants at Mt. Kwang-Duk were studied. The content of heavy metals in various organs of plants were analyzed by ICP. The range of heavy metals in plants for Al, As, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe. Mn, Pb, Se and Zn were 1.019∼257.200ppm, O∼2.929ppm, 0∼0.079ppm, 0∼0.054ppm, 0.023∼3.007ppm, 0∼1.997ppm, 2.031∼148.500ppm, 1.069∼51.320ppm, O∼126.900ppm, 0.708∼4.927ppm and 0.846∼4.949ppm, respectively. The amount of heavy metals in plants are much less than that of soil except some species. In woody plants, it was detected that the metal contents of leaves were higher than that of stems especially in case of Al and Fe with statistical significance. There were significant differences between shoots and roots of herb plants in metal content of Al, Co and Fe. Those metals have more accumulated in roots comparing with shoots. Some species of plants had shown the difference tendency of heavy metal accumulation. Generally, most species had not exceeded over twice of mean value each other, and had various difference according to the kinds of heavy metals.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.20-25
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• 2011

Since 1980's, many mines have been closed and abandoned due to the exhaustion of deposits and declining prices of international mineral resources. Because of the lack of post management for these abandoned mines, Farm land and rivers were contaminated with heavy metal ions and sludge. We studied on the solidification/stabilization of heavy metal ions, chromium ions and lead ions, using magnesia-phosphate cement. Magnesia binders were used calcined-magnesia and dead-burned magnesia. Test specimens were prepared by mixing magnesia binder with chromium ions and lead ions and activators. We analyzed the hydrates by reaction between magnesiaphosphate cement and each heavy metal ions by XRD and SEM-EDAX, and analyzed the content of heavy metal ions in the eruption water from the specimens for the solidification and stabilization of heavy metal ions by ICP. The results was shown that calcined magnesia binder is effective in stabilization for chromium ions and dead-burned magnesia binder is effective in stabilization for lead ions.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.699-704
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• 2001

Until recently, disposal to landfill has been the most convenient way to deal with the increasing amount of residues the shredding industries produce. But the shortage of such disposal sites and the risk that liquid drained from these waste dusts may pollute ground water have increased the environmental pressures to find more effective solutions. The present study is an alternative approach that suggests identifying waste dusts characteristics and selecting an appropriate binder for hazardous materials to reduce the amount of contaminants (mainly lead) that were leaking into the soil. Investigations on the characteristics of automobiles waste dusts show that these materials are composed mainly of cottons and sponge like substances, plastics, rubber, glasses and gravel, metals, and electric wires. Besides, the percentage in weight of organic (inflammable) materials is about 70% and the lead contamination, which has not a ionic but a particulate nature, is particularly remarkable in cottons and sponge like materials. Binding additives such as K-20 and sodium carbonate were not effective but the addition of 5 % of cement (in weight of the investigated sample) followed by a 3-minute stirring and a 4-hour storage could drastically reduce the run off of lead below the maximum authorized level. No addition of water was necessary in this method.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2010.05a
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• pp.58.1-58.1
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• 2010

We have developed a novel crystallization process, where the crystallization temperature is lowered compared to the conventional RTA process and the metal contamination is lowered compared to the conventional VIC process. A very-thin a-Si film was deposited and crystallized at $550^{\circ}C$ for 3 h by the VIC process and then a thick a-Si film was deposited and crystallized by the RTA process at $680^{\circ}C$ for 5 min using the VIC poly-Si layer as a crystallization seed layer. The RTA crystallized temperature could be lowered up to $50^{\circ}C$, compared to RTA process alone. The poly-Si film appeared a needle-like growth front and relatively well-arranged (111) orientation. In addition, the Ni concentration in the poly-Si film was lowered to $3{\times}10^{17}\;cm^{-3}$ and that at the poly-Si/$SiO_2$ interface was lowered to $5{\times}10^{19}\;cm^{-3}$. The reduction in metal contamination could be greatly helpful to achieve a low leakage current in poly-Si TFT, which is the critical parameter for commercialization of AMOLED.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.223-228
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• 2002

In addition to supplying the essential elements, Ca and S, phosphogypsum can have profound effect on both the physical and chemical properties of certain soils. However, no widespread use of by-product phosphogypsum will be made unless such uses pose no threat to the public health and soil contamination. In this study, the extractability of As, Cd, Cu, and Pb with water and DTPA solution from phosphogypsum samples of pH 3, 5, and 7 were investigated to estimate the availability of those metals. Contents of water extractable metals in ohosphogypsum were less than 5 mg/kg for all the heavy metals investigated. The extractability of metals in DTPA solution was not quite different but a little higher in comparison to the water extraction. And the extractability was decreased as the pH of phosphogypsum increased. In the phosphogypsum of pH 7, amounts of water extractable metals were nearly zero. There was no significant difference in the amount of extractable metals during the extraction period of 5 weeks. The length of extraction time did not affect heavy metal extractability. Therefore there may be small fractions of easily soluble or extractable forms of metals in the phosphogypsum and most of the metals would be present in very insoluble forms. These results suggest that the application of phosphogypsum at appropriate rates on agricultural lands appears of no concern in terms of hazardous element contamination in soil.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.52-60
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• 2010

The stone-dust is an unavoidable by-product of aggregate production, which is produced about 0.8~1.0 million $m^3$ annually. The stone-dust is currently regarded as a hazard material on environment because it is classified as an industrial waste in the Waste Management Law of Korea. At present, the stone-dust is considered as a environmentally hazardous material, and is classified as an industrial waste according to the Waste Management Law of Korea. In this study, we assessed the heavy-metal contamination of the stone-dust on surrounding environments by various leaching tests. Leaching experiments (such as Korea Standard Leaching Procedure (KSLP), Soil Environment Preservation Act of Korea (SEPAK), Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP), and Synthetic Precipitation Leaching Procedure (SPLP)) show that very low heavy metals (As, Cd, Cu, Pb, Zn, Hg) and CN are leached out, or much less than each regulatory thresholds. The resuts of the leaching test with time in acidic solution (initial pH 5 and 3) indicate that pH-buffering minerals are present in the stone-dust. These results suggest that the stone-dust can not potentially affect adverse impact on surrounding environments such as surface water, groundwater and soil etc..

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.46 no.6
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• pp.930-940
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• 2013

We evaluated contamination with organic matter and trace metals by analyzing grain size, ignition loss (IL), chemical oxygen demand (COD), acid volatile sulfide (AVS), and trace metals (Al, Fe, Cu, Pb, Zn, Cd, Ni, Cr, Mn, Hg, and As) in surface sediments at 28 stations around the Geum River estuary in July 2008. The surface sediments in the estuary were mainly composed of coarse sediment (sand and muddy sand), with mean grain size (Mz) ranging between $2-4{\O}$. The high concentrations of IL, COD, and trace metals were mainly found at stations in front of the Gusan outer port and industrial complex, and near the Seocheon coast with relatively fine sediments. In addition, the concentrations of IL and all trace metals, except Pb and As, showed good positive correlations with Mz, indicating that the concentrations of organic matter and trace metals were mainly dependent on sediment grain size. The concentrations of COD, AVS, and trace metals in most sediments did not exceed the sediment quality guideline (SQGs). Although the sediments in the study region are not polluted with organic matter and trace metals, there are many point sources of pollutants, such as Gusan port and industrial complex, Janghang refinery, and a thermoelectric power plant around the Geum River estuary. Thus, the management of coastal environments through periodic monitoring of organic matter and trace metals is required in the future.