• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.41 no.11
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• pp.318-327
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• 2017

Background: A typical sewage treatment plant is designed for organic and nutrient removal from municipal sewage water and not targeted to eliminate micropollutants such as pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and nano-sized metals which become a big concern for sustainable human and ecological system and are mainly discharged from sewage treatment plant. Therefore, despite contaminant removal by wastewater treatment processes, there are still remaining environmental risks by untreated pollutants in STP (sewage treatment plant) effluents. This study performed aquatic toxicity tests of raw wastewater and treated effluents in two sewage treatment plants to evaluate toxicity reduction by wastewater treatment process and analyze concentration of contaminants to reveal potential toxic factors in STP effluents. Methods: Water samples were collected from each treatment steps of two STPs, and acute and chronic toxicity tests were conducted following USEPA (United States Environmental Protection Agency) and OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) guidelines. Endpoints were immobility for mortality and reproduction effect for estrogenicity. Results: Acute $EC_{50}s$ (median effective concentration) of influents for Seungki (SK) and Jungnang (JN) STPs are $54.13{\pm}32.64%$ and $30.38{\pm}24.96%$, respectively, and reduced to $96.49{\pm}7.84%$ and 100%. Acute toxicity reduction was clearly correlated with SS (suspended solids) concentration because of filter feeding characteristics of test organisms. Chronic toxicity tests revealed that lethal effect was reduced and low concentration of influents showed higher number of neonates. However, toxicity reduction was not related to nutrient removal. Fecundity effect positively increased in treated wastewater compared to that in raw wastewater, and no significant differences were observed compared to the control group in JN final effluent implying potential effects of estrogenic compounds in the STP effluents. Conclusions: Conventional wastewater treatment process reduced some organics and nutritional compounds from wastewater, and it results in toxicity reduction in lethal effect and positive reproductive effect but not showing correlation. Unknown estrogenic compounds could be a reason causing the increase of brood size. This study suggests that pharmaceutical residues and nanoparticles in STP effluents are one of the major micropollutants and underline as one of estrogenic effect factors.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.304-310
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• 2007

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effects of the co-treatment of municipal wastewater with microwave-irradiated excess sludge on the treatment efficiency and excess sludge production of the activated sludge process. When 250 mL of excess sludge with a MLSS concentration of approximately 2,000 mg/L was microwave-irradiated at $20^{\circ}C$ for $40\sim300$ sec by a microwave oven (2,450 MHz, 700 W), the temperature of the sludge increased at a rate of approximately $20^{\circ}C/min$ and the SCOD, TKN and T-P concentrations of the sludge showed the highest increase in the irradiation time of $40\sim130$ sec. And, the oxygen uptake rate measurement of the sludge microorganism suggested most of the microorganisms in the sludge were destroyed at an irradiation time above 130 sec(above $65^{\circ}C$). When the municipal wastewater and microwave-irradiated excess sludge was co-treated by the activated sludge process, almost no effect was observed in the pH and alkalinity of both the influent and effluent, but the influent concentrations of SS, COD, T-N and T-P increased. Even though the effluent SS, BOD and T-P concentrations showed almost no effect, the COD and TKN concentrations increased. The microbial yield coefficient decreased at a rate of 0.91 g SS/g COD removed as the irradiation ratio increased at a rate of 1 g SS/g SS-day.

• Environmental Sciences Bulletin of The Korean Environmental Sciences Society
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.125-136
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• 1997

Digestion of a municipal wastewater sludge by the anaerobic sequencing batch reactor(ASBR) was investigated to evaluate the performance of the ASBR process at a critical condition of high-solids-content feed. The reactors were operated at an HRT of 10 days with an equivalent loading rate of 0.8-1.5 gVS/L/d at $35^{\circ}C.$ The main conclusions drawn from this study were as follows: 1. Digestion of a municipal wastewater sludge was possible using the ASBR in spite of high concentration of settleable solids in the sludge. The ASBRS with 3- and 4-day cycle period showed almost identical high digestion performances. 2. No adverse effect on digestion stability was observed in the ASBRS in spite of withdrawal and replenishment of $30\%\;or\;40\%$ of liquid contents. A conventional anaerobic digester could be easily converted to the ASBR without any stability problem. 3. Flotation thickening occurred in thicken step of the ASBRS throughout steady state, and floating bed volume at the end of thicken period occupied about $70\%$ of the working volume of the reactor. Efficiency of flotation thickening in the ASBRS could be comparable to that of additional gravity thickening of a completely mixed digester. 4. Solids were accumulated rapidly in the ASBR during start-up period. Solids concentrations in the ASBRS were 2.6 times higher than that in the completely mixed control reactor at steady state. Dehydrogenase activity had a strong correlation with the solids concentration. Dehydrogenase activity of the digested sludge in the ASBR was 2.9 times higher than that of the sludge in the control reactor, and about 25 times higher than that of the subnatant in the ASBR. 5. Remarkable increase in equivalent gas production of $52\%$ was observed at the ASBRS compared with the control reactor in spite of similar Quality of clarified effluent from the ASBRS and control reactor. The increase in gas production from the ASBRS was believed to be combined results of accumulation of microorganisms, higher driving force applied, and additional long-term degradation of organics continuously accumulated.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.111-117
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• 2003

Treatment of secondary effluent was investigated using sandy soil as a possible alternative to the tertiary treatment of municipal wastewater. Secondary effluent was applied with three different flow rates to the surface of pilot scaled lysimeters, which were filled with sandy soil. Some of the lysimeters were covered with osd, while others were kept bare in order to investigate the role of plantation on the treatment. The concentration changes in COD and nitrogen were measured along the unsaturated soil depth. The same set of experiment as with the secondary effluent was performed using tap water to investigate the dissolution of the contaminants from the soil. from the results it was found that when sandy soil was used for tertiary treatment of municipal wastewater COD removal efficiency reached about 70% regardless of the application rate. The soil depth needed to obtain such efficiency increased along with the application rate, which was about 60 cm at the application rate of 50 L/day. Results also showed that nitrification occurred rapidly. The process was completed in soil depth of first $10{\sim}20\;cm$. Nitrogen removal efficiency was as low as about 20% regardless of the application rate. Some supplementary means should be considered to improve the efficiency. Sod on the soil surface had no significant influence on the contaminant treatment but was helpful to keep the infiltration rate undiminished. Finally, the organic soil was found to release significant amount of contaminants when it was in contact with soil water.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.68-75
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• 2014

Soluble nitrogen produced from anaerobic digestor is able to have a strong influence on the effluent water quality of municipal wastewater treatment plants during a winter season in particular. The modeling results using the GPS-X simulation software shows that the soluble nitrogen concentration generated from the anaerobic digestor is 214.1 mg/L in the return flow and 6.2 mg/L in the inflow of the primary settler higher than those in nonexistence of the anaerobic digestor, respectively. In the case of using a separation process (flotation thickener) in order to treat the return flow from the sludge treatment system, the soluble nitrogen concentration in the effluent from the separation process and in the inflow of the primary setter could be 6.0 mg/L higher and 0.7 mg/L lower than those of nonexistence of the process, respectively. The modeling results propose the need of the equipments to be able to remove the soluble nitrogen ($NH_3-N$) produced from the digestor in the improvement projects of anaerobic digestor in municipal wastewater treatment plants.

• Advances in environmental research
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.191-214
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• 2020

The rise in population and industrialization accounts for the generation of a huge amount of wastewaters. The treatment of this wastewater is obligatory to safeguard the environment and various life forms. Conventional methods for high strength wastewater treatment coming out to be ineffective. Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) for such wastewater treatment proved to be very effective particularly for the removal of various refractory compounds present in the wastewater. Ozone based AOPs with its high oxidizing power and excellent disinfectant properties is considered to be an attractive choice for the elimination of a large spectrum of refractory compounds. Furthermore, it enhances the biodegradability of wastewaters after treatment which favors subsequent biological treatments. In this review, a detailed overview of the AOPs (like the Fenton process, photocatalysis, Electrochemical oxidation, wet air oxidation, and Supercritical water oxidation process) has been discussed explicitly focusing on ozone-based AOPs (like O₃, O₃/H₂O₂, O₃/UV, Ozone/Activated carbon process, Ozone/Ultrasound process, O₃/UV/H₂O₂ process). This review also comprises the involved mechanisms and applications of various ozone-based AOPs for effective municipal/industrial wastewaters and landfill leachate treatment. Process limitations and rough economical analysis were also introduced. The conclusive remarks with future research directions also underlined. It was found that ozonation in combination with other effective AOPs and biological methods enhances treatment efficacies. This review will serve as a reference document for the researchers working in the AOPs field particularly focusing on ozone-based AOPs for wastewater treatment and management systems.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.92-99
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• 2020

Linked treatment refers to a system that relieves the burden of the business by linking high concentrations of wastewater such as human waste, manure, leachate, and other industrial wastewater to nearby municipal wastewater treatment plants(MWTPs). In 2018, 187 MWTPs, which are about 4.5% of the total domestic MWTPs, have implemented a linked treatment system, but local governments are having difficulties in operating sewage treatment due to lack of reasonable cost estimation standards. Therefore, we proposed an improvement plan to solve the problem in the calculation method that currently imposes linked wastewater. To this end, the effects and correlations of the linkage treatment system on the sewage treatment unit were analyzed, and among them, the main factors with the highest correlation were applied to the improvement plan. As a result, an improvement plan that improved three parts of the existing calculation method was presented, and the calculation method and the calculation case using the existing literature values were also presented. This can be used as a basis for future reference by local governments to implement linkage treatment, and to revise local sewerage ordinance and is believed to be helpful in operating a rational linkage system.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.390-397
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• 2018

The Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant(MWTP), located industrial estate, has a problem of decreasing nitrification efficiency. In this research, it was analyzed that effect of heavy metals and retention time to nitrification based on operational result of laboratory scale reactors. And suggest improving MWTP operation method for increasing nitrification efficiency based on findings. According to operational result, laboratory scale reactor shows over 60% nitrification efficiency over hydraulic retention time(HRT) 0.5 day. However, the nitrification efficiency of S MWTP(high heavy metal concentration) sample was lower than that of A MWTP(low heavy metal concentration) sample in same operational condition. The main reason was heavy metals in industrial wastewater. This heavy metals was acted as inhibitor to nitrifier in reactors. So, activity of nitrifier was analyzed based on specific nitrification rate(SNR). The SNR of S MWTP sample shows 0.13 ~ 0.21 mg NH4/gMLSS/hr and that of A MWTP sample shows 0.74 mg NH4/gMLSS/hr. As a result, the activity of nitrifier of S MWTP was lower than that of A MWPT. In other words, retrofit methods for improving nitrification efficiency in MWTPs located industrial estate were that to increase retention time in biological treatment process or to pretreat heavy metal before being injected biological treatment process.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.24-31
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• 2003

Objective of this study was to assess rice growth and percolation water salinity under the irrigation of the discharge waters from the municipal wastewater treatment plant and from the industrial wastewater treatment plant as alternative water resources during transplanting season. Three kinds of waters were irrigated; the discharge water from an industrial wastewater treatment plant (DIWT), the discharge water from the municipal wastewater treatment plant (DMWT), and groundwater. Concentrations of $COD_{er}$, $NH_4{^+}_-N$, $Mn^{2+}$, and $Ni^+$ in DIWT, SS content and $PO_4-P$ concentrations in DMWT were higher than those of reuse water criteria of other country for agricultural irrigation. The plant height in the irrigation of DMWT was shorter by 2 cm than the groundwater irrigation except for 10 days irrigation. However, the number of tillerings was not significantly different between DMWT and the groundwater. For the harvest index, there were no significant difference between DMWT and DIWT for 20 days irrigation, but slightly higher in DIWT than that of DMWT for 30 days irrigation regardless of soil types. The salinity of percolation water in the rhizosphere with irrigation of DIWT had more twofold than DMWT, but SAR value from DMWT had no significantly different from the groundwater irrigation. The average $EC_i$ values in the rooting zone irrigated with DIWT and DMWT for 30 days after rice transplanting were 4.7 and $3.4dS\;m^{-1}$ in clay loam soil, and were 3.5 and $2.5dS\;m^{-1}$ in sandy loam soil, respectively. There was dramatic decrease in $EC_i$ value at 30 days after rice transplanting even though $EC_i$ of DIWT had more twofold than DMWT. However, $EC_i$ from DMWT had no significant difference from the groundwater. Therefore, it might be considered that there was limited possibility to irrigate DMWT to overcome drought injury of rice transplanting season in paddy field.

• Proceedings of the Korea Air Pollution Research Association Conference
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• 1999.10a
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• pp.280-284
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• 1999

대기 중에는 $CO_2$, CH$_4$ 및 $H_2O$$_2$ 등 온실효과를 일으키는 가스가 포함되어 있고, 이들은 지구의 기온을 일정 수준으로 유지시켜 줌으로써 인간가 동식물에게 살기 좋은 환경을 제공한다. 그러나 산업 혁명 이후 화석 연료 및 화학 물질 사용 증가에 따라 $CO_2$, NOx 및 CFC, VOC 등의 온실가스는 다양한 경로를 통하여 대기 중으로 배출되고 이것은 지구 온난화의 원인이 되고 있다.(중략)