• Resources Recycling
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.92-101
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• 2021

The status of waste generation and recycling in 32 countries in the European Union (EU), Japan, and the United States was investigated and summarized to encourage overseas market expansion for domestic urban mining industries. Among the 32 EU countries, Germany has the highest amount of material consumption and generates the largest quantity of waste. Minerals such as mine and soil wastes constitute the largest type of waste in the EU. With respect to waste treatment techniques, landfill and recycling are applied to 39% and 38% of the waste, respectively, implying the necessity to promote recycling. Japan's total waste generation declined recently to less than 400 million tons. The largest amount of waste is generated by the manufacturing industries. The proportion of total recycled waste is estimated to be slightly over 50%, but the proportions are greater than 90% for metal scrap and 60% for waste plastics. The amount of waste produced in the United States recently exceeded 265 million tons; 52.1% of the waste is landfilled, while only 25.1% is recycled. Therefore, the recycling industry has to be developed further.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.49-55
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• 2016

Field measurement units and a system were constructed and installed in a waste-dump slope at the Imgi mine to investigate and analyze the variations in the unsaturated characteristics of the soil. The field instrumentation system was composed of a data acquisition system (DAS), a solar system, and measuring sensors. The rainfall, matric suction, and volumetric water contents were continuously measured from the units in the instrumented site. The variations in matric suction and volumetric water content were primarily affected by the rainfall intensity. At the surface of the slope, the largest increase and decrease in the changes in matric suction and volumetric water content were observed during the wetting and drying processes, respectively. Also, the matric suction and volumetric water content were 5-35 kPa and 0.12-0.24, respectively. However, the ground water level was not suddenly increased just after rainfall but gradually increased after 2 or 3 days later.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.30-35
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• 2008

Mixed acidophilic bacteria were approached for leaching of cobalt and lithium from wastes of lithium ion battery industries. The growth substrates for the mixed mesophilic bacteria are elemental sulfur and ferrous ion. Bioleaching of the metal was due to the protonic action of sulfate ion on the metals present in the waste. It was investigated that bioleaching of cobalt was faster than lithium. Bacterial action could leach out about 80 % of cobalt and 20 % of lithium from the solid wastes within 12 days of the experimental period. Higher solid/liquid ratio was found to be detrimental for bacterial growth due to the toxic nature of the metals. At high elemental sulfur concentration, the sulfur powder was observed to be in undissolved form and hence the leaching rate also decreased with increase of sulfur amount.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.3-10
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• 2021

The field of recycling for waste electronic components, which is the typical example of an urban mine, requires the development of useful sorting techniques. In this study, a sorter based on image identification by deep learning was developed to select electronic components into four groups. They were recovered from waste printed circuit boards and should be separated to depend on the difference after treatment. The sorter consists of a workstation with GPU, camera, belt conveyor, air compressor. A small piece (less than 3.5 cm) of electronic components on the belt conveyor (belt speed: 6 cm/s) was taken and learned as teaching data. The accuracy of the image identification was 96% as kinds and 99% as groups. The optimum condition of sorting was determined by evaluating accuracies of image identification and recovery rates by blowdown when changing the operating condition such as belt speed and blowdown time of compressed air. Under the optimum condition, the accuracy of image classification in groups was 98.7%. The sorting rate was more than 70%.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.96-100
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• 2002

This study is aimed at prevention and countermeasurements of the mine wastewater pollution caused by a mineralized area using heavy metals. Objective of this study is selected to a high positive ion methathesis capacity of the environmental integrity character materials, as well as applied to the mine wastewater treatments. Also, the environmental integrity character materials is selected Kaolin. Silica, Zeolite, Fly ash. Thus, this environmental integrity character matters will be proved in the reduced heavy metals level and fine water quality of effluent.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.781-786
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• 2003

This study has focused on the possibility for recycling tailings from the Sangdong tungsten mine as admixture for concrete. The XRD(X-ray diffraction analysis) and PSA(Particle size analysis) were performed to find mineralogical characteristics. As a result of XRD analysis, the tailings were composed of quartz, feldspars and muscovites, and C-S-H and quartz were found in cement mortar. As a result of KSLT for cement mortar mixed with tailings, most of heavy metals were determined as below the guide line for waste material. In addition, the setting time and compressive strength of cement mortar mixed with tailings were investigated. It was indicated that the initial and final set were retarded according to increasing replacement. The compressive strength of mortar was decreased with increasing replacement.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.92-101
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• 2012

Korea shows the soil pH is 5.8 ~ 6.2 by many factors including the geological structure and climate condition. There is known as the cause for soil acidification by weathering of the mineral, excessive use of the chemical fertilizer, and extensively diffused acid rain. The purpose of research is environmentally-friendly material neutralization technology development utilizing the waste resources against by acid soil. The experiment analyze the physico-chemical property of the acid soil and waste resource materials (waste lime, oyster shell, bottom ash). The Batch-Test was performed under 3 stage. As a result, the acid soil showed up acid soil about 3.19. And waste lime, oyster, bottom ash showed the alkalinity with 9.62, 10.08, 9.17. In case of 1 batch-test experimental result, waste lime and oyster shell, the alkalinity was shown over 7.5 and the good efficiency was showed, on the other hands, the bottom ash showed the pH 4 the neutralization efficiency which is low. waste resource materials to be applied to 2 steps was chosen as the waste lime except the bottom ash and oyster. In 2 step batch-test experiment, it was exposed to be the most appropriate in case of doing the combination ratio of the waste lime and oyster shell with 9 : 1. It was exposed to be efficient most in the effeciency and aspect of economical efficiency combination ratio of the soil and materials was 9.6 : 0.6 with 3 step batch-test experimental result.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.38 no.2 s.171
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• pp.135-142
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• 2005

In order to investigate the contamination level and seasonal variation of heavy metals and evaluate the bioavailability of toxic elements, environmental geochemical survey was undertaken at the Dogok Au-Ag-Cu mine area. The main pollution sources in the area were suggested as tailings, mine waste materials and mine water. Elevated levels of $140{\cal}mg/{\cal}kg{\;}As,{\;}107{\cal}mg/{\cal}kg{\;}Cd,{\;} 3017{\cal}mg/{\cal}kg{\;}Cu,{\;}12926{\cal}mg/{\cal}kg{\;}Pb,{\;}9094{\cal}mg/{\cal}kg$ Zn(before rainy season) were found in mine tailings. Concentrations of heavy metals in farmland soils exceeded normal level in nature soil (Bowen, 1979). The highest level of heavy metals was found in water samples near the mine tailing dumps regarded as a main pollution source of toxic elements in the area. These concentrations decreased to downstream due to the effect of dilution. From the results of sequential extraction analyses for tailings and soils, non-residual forms of heavy metals were found, which indicate the contamination to be progressing by continuing weathering and oxidation. Cadmium and Zn would be of the highest mobility in all samples. The bioavailability of Cd, Cu, Zn and As using SBET analysis from paddy soils was $53.3{\%},{\;}46.5{\%},{\;}41.0{\%}$ and $37.0\%$, respectively. The farmland soil sample(S3) showed the highest total concentration and bioavailability of heavy metals.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.145-150
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• 2005

An extensive numerical analysis is carried out to investigate the slope stability of the wasted mine tailing landfill constructed by the utilization of fine recycled-concrete aggregates. To do this, first, the physical and mechanical properties of the fine recycled-concrete aggregates and the wasted mine tailing are investigated, and the settlement and the change of material properly of the fine recycled-concrete aggregates resulted from reaction with water are also examined. The $OH^-$ elution from the fine recycled-concrete aggregates reacted with water slightly causes the change of material properties such as porosity, permeability and waster absorption, but the settlement does not happen noticeably. The results of numerical analysis of the landfill slope built with wasted mine tailing and recycled-concrete aggregates in alternate layer indicate that slope stability increases with decreasing the slope ratio, with decreasing the groundwater level inside slope, and with increasing the depth of fine recycled-concrete aggregate layer. Based on this study, thus, engineers working in related to the wasted mine tailing landfill design and construction using the fine recycled-concrete aggregates should be considered the slope ratio, the groundwater level, the depth of fine recycled-concrete aggregate layer.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.391-397
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• 2014

Acid mine drainage occurrence is a serious environmental problem by mining industry; it usually contain high levels of metal ions, such as iron, copper, zinc, aluminum, and manganese, as well as metalloids of which arsenic is generally of greatest concern. It causes mine impacted soil pollution with mining and smelting activities, fossil fuel combustion, and waste disposal. In the present study, three bacterial strains capable of producing urease were isolated by selective enrichment of heavy metal contaminated soils from a minei-mpacted area. All isolated bacterial strains were identified Sporosarcina pasteurii with more than 98% of similarity, therefore they were named Sporosarcina sp. KM-01, KM-07, and KM-12. The heavy metals detected from the collected mine soils containing bacterial isolates as Mn ($170.50mg\;kg^{-1}$), As ($114.05mg\;kg^{-1}$), Zn ($92.07mg\;kg^{-1}$), Cu ($62.44mg\;kg^{-1}$), and Pb ($40.29mg\;kg^{-1}$). The KM-01, KM-07, and KM-12 strains were shown to be able to precipitate calcium carbonate using urea as a energy source that was amended with calcium chloride. SEM-EDS analyses showed that calcium carbonate was successfully produced and increased with time. To confirm the calcium carbonate precipitation ability, urease activity and precipitate weight were also measured and compared. These results demonstrate that all isolated bacterial strains could potentially be used in the bioremediation of acidic soil contaminated by heavy metals by mining activity.