• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.25 no.12
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• pp.1887-1897
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• 2001

Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) launched an intermediate scale steam explosion experiment named "Test for Real Corium Interaction with water (TROI)" using reactor material to investigate whether the molten reactor material would lead to energetic steam explosion when interacted wish cold water at low pressure. The melt-water interaction experiment is performed in a pressure vessel with the multi-dimensional fuel and water pool geometry. The novel concept of cold crucible technology, where powder of the reactor material in a water-cooled cafe is heated by high frequency induction, is firstly implemented for the generation of molten fuel. In this paper, the lest facility and cold crucible technology are introduced and the results or the first series of tests were discussed. The 5 kg of molten ZrO$_2$jet was poured into the 67cm deep water pool at 30 ∼ 95 $\^{C}$. Either spontaneous steam explosions or quenching was observed. The morphology of debris and pressure wave profiles clearly indicate the differences between the two cases.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.78-90
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• 2012

Soybean hull is an attractive feedstock for glucose production. To increase the glucose conversion in acid hydrolysis, a pretreatment method combined steam explosion with alkali pretreatment for soybean hull was studied. For first step pretreatment, steam explosion conditions (log Ro 2.45) were optimized to obtain maximum solid recovery and cellulose content. In the second step pretreatment, the conditions for potassium hydroxide pretreatment of steam exploded soybean hull were optimized by using RSM (response surface methodology). The optimum conditions for minimum lignin content were determined to be 0.6% potassium hydroxide concentration, $70^{\circ}C$ reaction temperature and 198 min reaction time. The predicted lignin content was 2.2% at the optimum conditions. Experimental verification of the optimum conditions gave the lignin content in similar value with the estimated value of the model. Finally, glucose conversion of pretreated soybean hull using acid hydrolysis resulted in $97.1{\pm}0.4%$. This research of two-step pretreatment was a promising method for increasing the glucose conversion in the cellulose-to-glucose process.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.59-67
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• 2022

Dietary fiber is considered a feed ingredient with high nutritional value in the broiler feed industry. Pine chips contain a large amount of dietary fiber and require some modification for use as broiler feed. In this study, pine chips were subjected to steam explosion under different severity factor (Ro) conditions to improve the chemical and physical properties of dietary fiber. The highest water-holding capacity, oil-holding capacity, and swelling capacity were found for Ro 4.0, followed by Ro4.5 and 3.5. The optimal condition for the steam explosion was determined to be Ro 4.0 (reaction temperature of 210℃, and reaction time of 6.0 min). Under these conditions, the water-holding capacity, oil-holding capacity, and swelling capacity of steam-exploded pine chips were 8.3 g/g, 6.5 g/g, and 5.0 mL/g, respectively. This study may contribute to the application of lignocellulose and related products in the broiler feed industry.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.324-328
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• 1998

This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of steam explosion treatment on composting with rice straw and barley straw. The composting was performed under the condition of $25^{\circ}C$, water content 70%, C/N ratio 30, and aeration of 100ml/min. The content of cellulose, lignin, and total carbon of compost were increased by steam explosion. During composting process total nitrogen of the compost from rice straw and steam exploded rice straw increased by $2{\sim}2.5$ percent, whereas that from steam exploded barley straw increased by 1.7 percent. However total nitrogen of compost from barley straw decreased by 0.41 percent. Therefore, barley straw is a kind of difficulty material for composting, but the composting was proceeded easily by steam explosion treatment, compared to raw barley straw.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.100.2-100.2
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• 2005

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.53-67
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• 1985

The severe core meltdown accident, which is not included as a design basis accident, has high consequence and low probability of occurrence and turns out to be a major risk factor in the overall risk assessment. The physical mechanisms of containment failure in core meltdown accidents are identified as steam explosion, debris bed coolability, hydrogen burning, steam spike and concrete interaction. The state of technology review is made for each subtopic about the previous and current researches for better understanding of the phenomenon.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.215-221
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• 1993

A required initial condition for a steam explosion to occur following core meltdown accidents of a nuclear power plant is the formation of a coarse mixture of molten fuel and water. The extent of a premixing is the measure of efficiency of steam explosion that may follow. A simple one-dimensional, transient model and the flooding criteria have been applied to evaluate the fuel/coolant mixing limit. Also, both instant breakup and dynamic breakup models for the mixing process have been separately used here and compared each other. The results indicate that fuel temperature, ambient pressure, mixing diameter, water depth, and pouring diameter are the important parameters affecting the mixing behavior.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.380-392
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• 2018

The importance of polysaccharides is increasing globally due to their role as a significant source of dietary prebiotics in the human diet. In the present study, in order to maximize the yield of crude polysaccharides from Pinus densiflora, response surface methodology (RSM) was used to optimize a two-stage extraction process consisting of steam explosion and water extraction. Three independent main variables, namely, the severity factor (Ro) for the steam explosion process, the water extraction temperature ($^{\circ}C$), and the ratio of water to raw material (v/w), were studied with respect to prebiotic sugar content. A Box-Behnken design was created on the basis of the results of these single-factor tests. The experimental data were fitted to a second-order polynomial equation for multiple regression analysis and examined using the appropriate statistical methods. The data showed that both the severity factor (Ro) and the ratio of water to material (v/w) had significant effects on the prebiotic sugar content. The optimal conditions for the two-stage process were as follows: a severity factor (Ro) of 3.86, a water extraction temperature of $89.66^{\circ}C$, and a ratio of water to material (v/w) of 39.20. Under these conditions, the prebiotic sugar content in the extract was 332.45 mg/g.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.111-122
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• 2013

The steam explosion-chemical pretreatment is a more effective wood pretreatment technique than the conventional physical pretreatment by accelerating reactions during the pretreatment process. In this paper, two-stage pretreatment processes of hardwood were investigated for its enzymatic hydrolysis and the succinic acid yield from the pretreated solid. The first stage pretreatment was performed under conditions of low severity to optimize the amount of solid recovery. In the second stage pretreatment washed solid material from the first stage pretreatment step was impregnated again with chemical (alkaline or chlorine-based chemicals) to remove a portion of the lignin, and to make the cellulose more accessible to enzymatic attack. The effects of pretreatment were assessed by enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation, after the two stage pretreatments. Maximum succinic acid yield (16.1 g $L^{-1}$ and 77.5%) was obtained when the two stage pretreatments were performed at steam explosion -3% KOH.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.18-25
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• 1990

As polysaccharides in lignocellulosic materials are encrusted with aromatic lignin molecules and have high crystallinity, these require pretreatment to improve their digestability by cellulolytic enzymes. Though a number of pretreatment methods have been proposed, the steam explosion process is evaluated as a promising method. This study was performed to investigate the effect of delignification treatment by alkali, methanol and the others on the enzymatic hydrolysis. Delignification treatment resulted in great increase rate in enzymatic hydrolysis. Concerning to the effect of delignication reagents on the enzymatic hydrolysis, methanol treatment was more effective than alkali in the case of oak wood. In pine wood, the delignification did not showed any significant enhancement of hydrolysis rate. Complete delignification by Alkali-Oxygen. Alkali treatment showed high saccharification rate of 99.5%.