• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.107-111
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• 2004

This study was undertaken to summarize of the efficiencies of the passive treatment system and suggest future studies for the solution of mine drainage problem. Flow rates of mine drainage from the abandoned coal mines are about 80,000 ton/day. Contaminated mine drainages over about 50 ton/day of flow rate were treated by passive treatment facilities such as Successive Alkalinity Producing Systems(SAPS), oxidation pond and oxic wetland. Chemical analysis for 13 passive coal mine treatment facilities showed that SAPS was the core of treatment facilities because the variation of Fe removal rates was relatively smaller than any other processes and re-leaching of Fe was not measured. The performance and life of SAPS depended on decrease in permeability and retention time due to accumulation of sludge. It is inferred that upgrade of design of the passive treatment system and in-situ treatment using underground void will be necessary for the amelioration of the mine drainage with high metal loading rates.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.666-672
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• 2008

Feasibility of simultaneous removal of organic matter, nitrogen and phosphorus was evaluated by applying AO$_2$ system to treat wastewater from a seafood processing plant. Treatability test was conducted by incorporating activated sludge from municipal sewage treatment plant with PU-AC media. Inflow concentrations of COD, TN, and TP were 198$\sim$1,240 mg/L, 75$\sim$577.4 mg/L, and 2.2$\sim$53.5 mg/L, respectively. Average removal efficiencies and outflow concentration of COD, TN, and TP were 86.5%, 65.7 mg/L; 81.4%, 53.1 mg/L; and 80.6% 4.07 mg/L, respectively. Stable operation was possible by increasing organic matter, nitrogen, and phosphorus loading rate to seafood wastewater treatment system composed of anaerobic and aerobic reactors. Used PU-AC media was proved to be biodegradable in this AO$_2$ system by maintaining high biomass concentration in the PU-AC media.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.11 no.8
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• pp.819-827
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• 2002

Laboratory scale experiments were conducted to evaluate the performance of a biofilter for eliminating dimethyl sulfide(DMS). A commercial compost/pine bark nugget mixture served as the biofilter material for the experiments. The gas flow rate and DMS concentration entering the filter were varied to study their effect on the biofilter efficiency. The operating parameters, such as the residence time, inlet concentration, pH, water content, and temperature, were all monitored throughout the filter operation. The kinetic dependence of the DMS removal along the column length was also studied to obtain a quantitative description of the DMS elimination. High DMS removal efficiencies(>95％) were obtained using the compost filter material seeded with activated sludge. DMS pollutant loading rates of up to 5.2 and 5.5 g-DMS/m$^3$/hr were effectively handled by the upflow and downflow biofilter columns, respectively. The macrokinetics of the DMS removal were found to be fractional-order diffusion-limited over the 9 to 25 ppm range of inlet concentrations tested. The upflow column had an average macrokinetic coefficient(K$\_$f/) of 0.0789 $\pm$ 0.0178 ppm$\^$$\sfrac{1}{2}$//sec, while the downflow column had an average coefficient of 0.0935 $\pm$ 0.0200 ppm$\^$$\sfrac{1}{2}$//sec. Shorter residence times resulted in a lower mass transfer of the pollutant from the gas phase to the aqueous liquid phase, thereby decreasing the efficiency.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.692-697
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• 1999

For further removal of non-biodegradable CODs and color in biologically treated distillery waster water, we selected a chemical treatment with Fe(III) and cationic polymers and then another chemical treatment with Fenton reagent. We developed Pregenerated Bubble Flotation(PBF) to effectively remove the chemical sludge from each chemical reaction process. The flotation unit was constructed with hydraulic loading rate, 7 ㎥/$m^2$.hr. The CODMn and suspended solids (SS) in biologically treated distillery waste water were reduced by the first PBF from 310-1096 mg/L to 141-303 mg/L and from 160-990 mg/L to 48-385 mg/L, respectively. Again, after the Fenton reaction process, floated SS was skimmed off at the top of the flotation unit and the final effluent was directly discharged without any tap water dilution. The quality of final effluent can be below 40 mg/L-CODMn but IISan Distilery has been maintained effluent quality of 73 mg/L-CODMn and 10-80 mg/L-SS. The chemical cost was saved by more than 30% as compared with that of prior process.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.37-44
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• 2000

Laboratory experiments were conducted to investigate the performances of anaerobic filters packed with ceramic tube and pall-ring media treating a dairy waste. The media packing volume was 65% of effective volume of anaerobic filter. Organics removals of anaerobic filters were maintained above 80% even at an organics loading rate of $10kgCOD/m^3/d$, and this was comparable to aerobic treatment of organic wastes. Organics removals of the ceramic tube anaerobic filters were always lower than those of the pall-ring anaerobic filters due to intrinsic physical property of ceramic tube, especially lower void space which caused to clogging and entrapment of biogas, substrate transfer limitation, and irregular evolution of biogas leading to loss of solids and biomass. This was clearly observed in higher concentration of TSS in the effluent from the ceramic tube anaerobic filter despite of higher retention capacity of TSS compared with pall-ring media. Vertical distribution of organics and solids in the filters showed above 90% of organics and solids in influent were removed below 20% of reactor height, and 50% of remaining organics and solids were removed though media packing zone. Effluent quality from the anaerobic filter was heavily depended on media itself as well as suspended biomass formed below media. It is therefore concluded that the type of media played an important role in biomass accumulation arid gas-liquid-solid separation efficiency. Type of media did not affect the start-up behaviors of the anaerobic filter, and supernatant from anaerobic digested sludge showed a good performance as a seeding materials.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.181-187
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• 2011

The overall objective of this study is to develop the engineering-friendly-methodology which can investigate the fate of antibiotic resistance in environment microbial community. For this purpose, effective concentration (EC) concept was adopted with cultural based method which is currently used in engineering practice. When a tetracyline antibiotic was present as selective pressure agent among microbial community, activated sludge, the $EC_{50}$ and/or $EC_{90}$ of tetracycline in microbial community were statistically increased compared to control, especially higher growth rate and organic loading conditions of SBRs. Therefore, these results strongly suggested that the continuous monitoring of EC in microbial community can be used for characterizing the fate of tetracycline resistance community in environmental samples.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.137-143
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• 2013

The diversity and distribution of methanogenic archaea in a four-compartment anaerobic baffled reactor (ABR) treating sugar refinery wastewater were investigated by polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE). At an organic loading rate of 5.33 kg $COD/m^3{\cdot}day$, the ABR could perform steadily with the mean chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal of 94.8% and the specific $CH_4$ yield of 0.21 l/g $COD_{removed}$. The $CH_4$ content in the biogas was increased along the compartments, whereas the percentage of $H_2$ was decreased, indicating the distribution characteristics of the methanogens occurred longitudinally down the ABR. A high phylogenetic and ecological diversity of methanogens was found in the ABR, and all the detected methanogens were classified into six groups, including Methanomicrobiales, Methanosarcinales, Methanobacteriales, Crenarchaeota, Arc I, and Unidentified. Among the methanogenic population, the acid-tolerant hydrogenotrophic methanogens including Methanoregula and Methanosphaerula dominated the first two compartments. In the last two compartments, the dominant methanogenic population was Methanosaeta, which was the major acetate oxidizer under methanogenic conditions and could promote the formation of granular sludge. The distribution of the hydrogenotrophic (acid-tolerant) and acetotrophic methanogens in sequence along the compartments allowed the ABR to perform more efficiently and steadily.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.63-70
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• 2013

Experiments in a pilot-scale hybrid multi-stage unit system (HMUS) combination of ATAD and EGSB followed by SBR process for pig slurry treatment were conducted to demonstrate the feasibility of using autothermal thermophilic aerobic digestion (ATAD) and expended granular sludge bed (EGSB) followed by sequencing batch reactor (SBR) system. Contaminants in pig slurry with high organic matter, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) content were completely removed in the combined process. The highest removal rate for CODcr among contaminants in the feed pig slurry was attained by about 43.3% in ATAD unit process. Also TS removal rate of 96.5% was attained and the highest in the next coagulation unit process. The highest removal rate of CODcr under operating parameter conditions of OLR(organic loading rate), 3-6Kg $COD/m^3{\cdot}day$ and line velocity, 1.5-4m/h was earned at 3days of HRT. The disinfection of pathogens was effective at 50,000mg/L of TS in ATAD unit process. Biogas production per organic removal was $2.3{\sim}8.5m^3/kgTS{\cdot}d$ (average $5.2m^3/kgTS{\cdot}d$) in EGSB unit process. The average removal rates of CODcr 71.7%, TS 64.1%, TN 45.9%, and TP 50.4% were earned in the intermittent aeration SBR unit process.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.341-345
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• 2009

Continuous dry anaerobic digestion of organic solid wastes (30% TS, Total Solids) comprised of food waste and paper was performed under mesophilic condition. During the operation, hydraulic retention time (HRT) was decreased as follows: 150 d, 100 d, 60 d, and 40 d, which corresponded to the solid loading rate of 2.0, 3.0, 5.0, and 7.5 kg TS/$m^3$/d, respectively. Volumetric biogas production rate ($m^3$/$m^3$/d) increased as HRT decreased, and the highest biogas production rate of 3.49${\pm}$0.31 $m^3$/$m^3$/d was achieved at 40 d of HRT. At this HRT, high volatile solids (VS) reduction of 76% was maintained, and methane production yield of 0.25 $m^3$/kg $TS_{added}$ was achieved, indicating 67.4% conversion of organic solid waste to bioenergy. The highest biogas production yield of 0.52 $m^3$/kg $TS_{added}$ was achieved at 100 d of HRT, but it did not change much with respect to HRT. For the ease feed pumping, some amount of digester sludge was recycled and mixed with fresh feed to decrease the solid content. Recirculation volume of 5Q was found to be the optimal in this experimental condition. Specific methanogenic activity (SMA) of microorganisms at mesophilic-dry condition was 2.66, 1.94, and 1.20 mL $CH_4$/g VS/d using acetate, butyrate, and propionate as a substrate, respectively.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.279-290
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• 2016

The performance of upflow anaerobic bioelectrochemical reactor (UABE), equipped with electrodes (anode and cathode) inside the upflow anaerobic reactor, was compared to that of upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor for the treatment of acidic distillery wastewater. The UASB was stable in pH, alkalinity and VFAs until the organic loading rate (OLR) of 4.0 g COD/L.d, but it became unstable over 4.0 g COD/L.d. As a response to the abrupt doubling in OLR, the perturbation in the state variables for the UABE was smaller, compared to the UASB, and quickly recovered. The UABE stability was better than the UASB at higher OLR of 4.0-8.0 g COD/L.d, and the UABE showed better performance in specific methane production rate (2,076mL $CH_4/L.d$), methane content in biogas (66.8%), and COD removal efficiency (82.3%) at 8.0 g COD/L.d than the UASB. The maximum methane yield in UABE was about 407mL/g $COD_r$ at 4.0 g COD/L.d, which was considerably higher than about $282mL/g\;COD_r$ in UASB. The rate limiting step for the bioelectrochemical reaction in UABE was the oxidation of organic matter on the anode surface, and the electrode reactions were considerably affected by the pH at 8.0 g COD/L.d of high OLR. The maximum energy efficiency of UABE was 99.5%, at 4.0 g COD/L.d of OLR. The UABE can be an advanced high rate anaerobic process for the treatment of acidic distillery wastewater.