• Membrane Journal
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.373-384
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• 2015

In the past few decades, polymeric membrane has played an important role in gas separation applications. For the separation of $CO_2$, one of greenhouse gases, high permselectivity, long-term stability and scale-up are needed. However, conventional polymeric membranes have shown a trade-off relation between permeability and selectivity while inorganic materials are highly permeable but expensive. Mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) combining the advantages of both polymeric and inorganic materials have become a possible breakthrough for the next-generation gas separation membranes. The MMMs could be either symmetric or asymmetric but the latter is more preferred to improve the permeance. Important factors influencing the MMM fabrication include homogeneous distribution of inorganic particles and good interfacial contact between inorganic filler and organic matrix. Recently, metal organic frameworks (MOFs) have received much attention as a new class of porous crystalline materials and a potential candidate for $CO_2$ separation. Zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs), a sub-branch of MOFs, are the most widely used in MMMs due to small particle size and appropriate pore size for $CO_2$ separation. One of the major issues associated with the incorporation of porous particles in a polymeric membrane is to control the microstructure of the porous particle materials such as particle size, orientation, and boundary conditions etc. In this review, major challenges surrounding MMMs and the strategies to tackle these challenges are given in detail.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.109-118
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• 2013

Characteristics of the transport of zero-valent iron nanoparticles (nZVI) in an aquifer were investigated to evaluate an application of nZVI-based reactive zone technology. Main flow direction of groundwater was north. Preferential flow paths of the groundwater identified by natural gradient tracer test were shown northeast and northwest. The highest groundwater velocity was $4.86{\times}10^{-5}$ m/s toward northwest. When the breakthrough curves obtained from the gravity injection of nZVI were compared with the tracer curves, the transport of nZVI was retarded and retardation factors were 1.17 and 1.34 at monitoring wells located on the northeast and northwest, respectively. The ratios of the amount of nZVI delivered to the amount of tracer delivered at the two wells mentioned above were 24 and 28 times greater than that of the well on the main flow direction, respectively. Attachment efficiency based on a filtration theory was $4.08{\times}10^{-2}$ along the northwest direction that was the main migration route of nZVI. Our results, compared to attachment efficiencies obtained in other studies, demonstrate that the mobility of nZVI was higher than that of results reported in previous studies, regardless of large iron particle sizes of the current study. Based on distribution of nZVI estimated by the attachment efficiency, it was found that nZVI present within 1.05 m from injection well could remove 99% of TCE within 6 months.

• Carbon letters
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.274-279
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• 2007

In order to understand the breakthrough behaviour of iodine vapours on impregnated carbon systems, an active carbon, 80 CTC grade, $12{\times}30$ BSS particle size and $1104\;m^2/g$ surface area, was impregnated with metal salts such Cu, Cr, Ag, Mo and Zn, and an organic compound Triethylene diamine (TEDA) to prepare different carbon systems such as whetlerite, whetlerite/TEDA, whetlerite/KI/KOH and ASZMT. The prepared adsorbents along with active carbon were characterized for surface area and pore volume by $N_2$ adsorption at liquid nitrogen temperature. These carbon systems were compared for their CT (concentration X time) values at 12.73 to 53.05 cm/sec space velocities and 2 to 5 cm carbon column bed heights. The carbon column of 5.0 cm bed height and 1.0 cm diameter was found to be providing protection against iodine vapours up to 5.5 h at 3.712 mg/L iodine vapour concentration and 12.73 cm/sec space velocity. The study clearly indicated the adsorption capacities of carbon systems to be directly proportional to their surface area values. Dead layer with all the prepared carbon systems was found to be less than 2.0 cm indicating it to be minimum bed height to have protection against $I_2$ vapours. Effect of carbon bed height and flow rate was also studied. The active carbon showed maximum protection at all bed heights and flow rates in comparison to all other impregnated carbon systems, showing that only physical adsorption is responsible for the removal of iodine vapours.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.28-34
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• 2006

Laboratory column tests using $Cl^-$ tracer were conducted to study the correlation of soil particle distribution and hydrodynamic dispersion mechanism with three kinds of ununiformed soil samples, in which the ratio of gravel and sand versus silt and clay is 24.5 for S-1 soil, 4.48 for S-2 soil, and 0.4 for S-3 soil. Chloride breakthrough curves with time were fitted with gaussian functions. The relative concentrations of chloride were converged to 1.0 after 0.7 hours for S-1, 6.3 hours for S-2, and 389 hours for S-3. Average linear velocity, longitudinal dispersion coefficient, and longitudinal dispersivity were calculated by chloride breakthrough curves. Longitudinal dispersion coefficients were $1.20{\times}10^{-4}\;m^2/sec$ for S-1, $8.87{\times}10^{-7}\;m^2/sec$ for S-2, and $1.94{\times}10^{-9}\;m^2/sec$ for S-3. Peclet numbers calculated by the molecular diffusion coefficient of chloride and the mean grain diameters of soils were $2.59{\times}10^2$ for S-1, $6.27{\times}10^0$ for S-2, and $1.35{\times}10^{-4}$ for S-3. Mechanical dispersion was dominant for the hydrodynamic dispersion mechanism of S-1. Both mechanical dispersion and molecular diffusion were dominant for the hydrodynamic dispersion mechanism of S-2, but mechanical dispersion was ascendant over molecular diffusion. Hydrodynamic dispersion in S-3 was occurred mainly by molecular diffusion. When plotting three soils on the graph of $D_L/D_m$ versus Peclet number produced by Bijeljic and Blunt (2006), the values of $D_L/D_m$ for S-1 and S-2 were more than 2.0 order compared to their graph. S-3 was not plotted on their graph because the Peclet number was as small as $1.35{\times}10^{-4}$.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.32 no.11
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• pp.1017-1023
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• 2010

This study investigated the effect of surfactants (nonionic surfactant (Tween 20), biosurfactant) on enhancing transport of bacteria (Bacillus subtilis ATCC 6633) in geological materials. Column experiments were performed under various surfactant conditions with columns packed with quartz sand (particle size distribution: 0.5~2.0 mm, mean diameter: 1.0 mm). Bacterial mass recovery, sticking efficiency, and other parameters were quantified from breakthrough curves. Results indicate that bacterial attachment to sand surfaces increased considerably in the presence of mineral salt medium (MSM), especially at the inlet, which was due to the increase of ionic strength by MSM. It was observed that bacterial transport in sand columns was enhanced in the presence of surfactant. Results also show that simultaneous injection of both surfactant and MSM or pre-injection of surfactant was more effective in bacterial transport enhancement than after-injection of surfactant. This study suggests that transport of bacteria in geological materials could be influenced by surfactants and their injection methods.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.15 no.4 s.72
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• pp.3-12
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• 2006

The feasibility for the employment of manganese nodule as an adsorbent for $SO_{2}$ gas has been investigated. The specific surface area of manganese nodule particle, which used in the experiments, was ca. $221.5m^{2}/g$ and the content of sulfur in manganese nodule was observed to significantly increase after $SO_{2}$ was adsorbed on it. The EPMA for the distilled water-washed and methanol-washed manganese nodule particle after $SO_{2}$ adsorption showed that its sulfur content was slightly decreased to 14.7% and 13.1% respectively, from 15.4% before washing. The XRD analysis of manganese nodule showed that todorokite and birnessite, which are manganese oxides, and quartz and anorthite were the major mineralogical components and weak $MnSO_{4}$ peaks were detected after $SO_{2}$ was adsorbed on manganese nodule. For an comparative investigation, limestone was also tested as an adsorbent for $SO_{2}$, however, no peaks for $CaSO_{4}$ were found by XRD analysis after the adsorption of $SO_{2}$. As the size of adsorbent increased, time for breakthrough was decreased and the adsorbed amount of $SO_{2}$ was also diminished. The $SO_{2}$ adsorption was hindered when its flow rate became high and the adsorption capacity of manganese nodule was observed to be superior to that of limestone. In addition, the mixture of manganese nodule and limestone did not show an increase in the adsorption of $SO_{2}$. Finally, as the temperature was raised, the adsorbed amount of adsorbate on manganese nodule was found to be decreased.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.53 no.1
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• pp.23-32
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• 2020

Geological CO₂ sequestration is a global warming response technology to limit atmospheric emissions by injecting CO₂ captured on a large scale into deep geological formations. The presented results concern mineralogical and hydrogeological investigations (FE-SEM, XRD, XRF, and MICP) of mudstone samples from drilling cores of the Pohang basin, which is the research area for the first demonstration-scale CO₂ storage project in Korea. They aim to identify the mineral properties of the mudstone constituting the caprock and to quantitatively evaluate the hydrogeologic sealing capacity that directly affects the stability and reliability of geological CO₂ storage. Mineralogical analysis showed that the mudstone samples are mainly composed of quartz, K-feldspar, plagioclase and a small amount of pyrite, calcite, clay minerals, etc. Mercury intrusion capillary pressure analysis also showed that the samples generally had uniform particle configurations and pore distribution and there was no distinct correlation between the estimated porosity and air permeability. The allowable CO₂ column heights based on the estimated pore-entry pressures and breakthrough pressures were found to be significantly higher than the thickness of the targeting CO₂ injection layer. These results showed that the mudstone layers in the Yeongil group, Pohang basin, Korea have sufficient sealing capacity to suppress the leakage of CO₂ injected during the demonstration-scale CO₂ storage project. It should be noticed, however, that the applicability of results and analyses in this study is limited by the lack of available samples. For rigorous assessment of the sealing efficiency for geological CO₂ storage operations, significant efforts on collection and multi-aspect evaluation for core samples over entire caprock formations should be accompanied.