• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.33-42
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• 2010

The main objective of this study was to offer informations about the current conditions of stream sediments and to evaluate biochemical methane potentials of stream sediments from the urban streams in Busan city using conventional BMP tests. First we select total 5 urban streams and collect sediment samples. Then, COD, proximate analysis, volatile solid, organic carbon content and elemental analysis were conducted to determine characteristics of the sediments. Results show that COD, volatile solid and organic carbon content are determined in the range of $15.20{\sim}75.07mg\;g^{-1}$, 2.34~11.54% and 1.28~34.21%, respectively. Also, several biochemical methane potential tests were performed in a laboratory. As a result, pH values of the reactors generally increased and then stabilized at 7.11~7.35. In addition, C/N ratio, ultimate methane and carbon dioxide yield (mL/g VS) and biodegradability (%) were determined to 1.05~10.27, 10.1~179.4, 10.3~34.4 and 4.0~30.1, respectively. For the determination of the correlations between ultimate methane yield and ultimate carbon dioxide yield, C/N ratio, COD, volatile solid and organic carbon content, a linear model was fitted to the data using a least-squares algorithm. As a result, except for COD ($r^2=0.7586$) and volatile solid ($r^2=0.7876$), Linear model was well fitted to each data with good values of the correlation coefficient ($r^2=0.9795{\sim}0.9858$). Finally, we propose empirical equations, which contain C/N ratio or TOC, for the prediction of ultimate methane yield for the urban streams in Busan city.