• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.61-72
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• 2014

The aim of this study is to define the condition of optimal pre-treatment for preferable activated carbon fibers (ACFs), which are based on rayon fibers. This paper shows the ideal path of ACFs preparation process; implies that rayon fibers are pre-treated by various solvents with different times before the heating process. The pre-treated rayon fibers finally turned into desirable rayon fiber-based ACFs through optimal pre-treatment condition by heating processes. The thermal analysis method of pre-treated rayon fibers by thermo-gravimetry analyser (TGA) is an idealized tool, which analyzes the best thermal condition of pre-treatment process. Surface morphologies of resulting rayon fibers based ACFs were examined by scanning electron microscope(SEM). The results of TGA and SEM analyses show that the optimal pre-treatment condition for preparing ACFs was clearly defined, in terms of thermal stability and surface morphology.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.103-109
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• 2010

Anaerobic digestion has been widely used for the treatment of sludge, which is generated from the municipal and industrial wastewater treatment, for its volume reduction and methane production. Many researches on sludge pre-treatment have been carried out in order to enhance the performance of anaerobic digestion by increasing the hydrolysis of sludge which is the rate limiting step of anaerobic digestion. In this study, the effect of pre-treatment on sludge hydrolysis(solubilization), methane production and sludge reduction by anaerobic digestion after thermal, ultrasonic, and thermal-alkali sludge treatment were compared. Thermal-alkali treatment showed 67 and 70% solubilization with municipal and industrial wastewater sludge, respectively, while ultrasonic treatment and thermal treatment gave similar solubilization efficiency of 40% or more. Methane content of the anaerobic digestion gas reached 45~70% and pretreated sludge gave higher methane content than the control sludge. Methane production of thermal, ultrasonic, and thermal-alkali pre-treatment gave 2.6, 2.7, 3.5 times of municipal control sludge and 3.5, 4.1, 4.2 times of industrial control sludge, respectively. Sludge reduction of pre-treated sludge after anaerobic digestion gave 5~19% point higher than that of control sludge, and thermal-alkali treatment showed higher reduction efficiency than thermal and ultrasonic treatment. The results proved that pre-treatment contributed significantly not only for the methane production but also for the cost reduction of sludge treatment and disposal, and thermal-alkali treatment gave the best performance for the sludge treatment.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.20-29
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• 2014

The present study investigated the effects of thermal pre-treatment on the enhancement of anaerobic biodegradability of waste activated sludge at varied TS concentration levels. The activated sludges were thermally oxidized for 30 minutes at $80{\sim}200^{\circ}C$ with varied TS concentrations (2%, 4% and 6%). and then, sludge characteristics, solubilization efficiency and methane production yield of thermally pre-treated sludges were analyzed. The higher the temperature in the thermal pre-treatment, the higher the concentration levels of dissolved matters such as $SCOD_{Cr}$, $NH_4{^+}$ and VFAs, which indicates that the thermal pre-treatment facilitates the hydrolysis and acid fermentation. Furthermore, the solubilization efficiency was increased in proportion to the temperature rise at all TS concentrations and was reached at 68.9%, 55.6% and 53.1%, respectively, at $200^{\circ}C$. In the BMP test of the pre-treated sludges, higher methane production yields were observed as 0.313. 0.314 and $0.299m^3\;CH_4/kg\;VS_{add}$ at the condition of TS 2% ($160^{\circ}C$), 4% ($160^{\circ}C$) and 6% ($180^{\circ}C$), respectively, and degradation rate was increased by 84%, 79% and 65% compared with non-pretreated waste activated sludge. These findings suggest the effectiveness of thermal pre-treatment of waste activated sludge for anaerobic biodegradable process.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.275-281
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• 2013

This study was conducted to increase the amount of bio-hydrogen production from microalgae(Chlorella vulgaris) in batch reactors by thermal pre-treatment. The optimization of thermal pre-treatment was conducted using statistic experimental design of response surface methodology. Two experimental parameters of temperature and reaction time were considered. The optimization condition was founded at the coded variables of <0.52, -0.07> corresponding to the experimental of heating temperature of $95.6^{\circ}C$ and reaction time of 57.9 min, respectively. Under the optimal condition, the maximum hydrogen production was predicted to 25.3mL $H_2/g$ dry cell weight (dcw), which was 9.1 times higher value of control(2.8mL $H_2/g$ dcw).

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.613-619
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• 2018

In this study, various influent sludge pre-treatment methods and the internal recirculation of thickened sludge from effluents using a liquid/solid separation unit were adopted to investigate their effects on the sludge digestion and methane production in a combined mesophilic anaerobic and thermophilic aerobic sludge digestion process. A lab-scale combined sludge digestion process was operated during 5 phases using different feed sludge pre-treatment strategies. In phase 1, the feed sludge was pre-treated with a thermal-alkaline method. In contrast, in phases 2, 3 and 4, the internal recirculation of thickened sludge from the effluent and thermal-alkaline, thermal, and alkaline pre-treatment (7 days) were applied to the combined process. In phase 5, the raw sludge without any pre-treatment was used to the combined process. With the feed sludge pre-treatment and internal recirculation, the experimental results indicated that the volatile suspended solid (VSS) removal was drastically increased from phases 1 to 4. Also, the methane production rate with the thermal-alkaline pre-treatment and internal recirculation was significantly improved, showing an increment to 285 mL/L/day in phase 2. Meanwhile, the VSS removal and methane production in phase 5 were greatly decreased when the raw sludge without any pre-treatment was applied to the combined process. Considering all together, it was concluded that the combined process with the thickened sludge recirculation and thermal-alkaline pre-treatment can be successfully employed for the highly efficient sewage sludge reduction and methane gas production.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.71-78
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• 2015

This study was performed to optimize the integrated thermal-alkali pre-treatment of flotation scum for the enhanced biodegradability. The optimum conditions of the integrated thermal-alkali pre-treatment were obtained using response surface methodology. The disintegration degree of carbohydrate (69.2%) and protein (57.3) were estimated under the optimum conditions. Although the optimum conditions were different, the disintegration degrees were similarly. A fermentative hydrogen batch test was conducted to evaluate the hydrogen production from scum with and/or without. The maximum hydrogen production from scum with pre-treatment was of 0.64 mol H2/mol hexoseadded, which about 1.4 times higher than without pre-treatment.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.183-192
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• 2015

Response surface methodology (RSM) based on a Box-Behnken Design (BBD) was applied to optimize the thermal-alkaline pre-treatment operating conditions for anaerobic digestion of flotation scum in food waste leachate. Three independent variables such as thermal temperature, NaOH concentration and reaction time were evaluated. The maximum methane production of 369.2 mL $CH_4/g$ VS was estimated under the optimum conditions at $62.0^{\circ}C$, 10.1% NaOH and 35.4 min reaction time. A confirmation test of the predicted optimum conditions verified the validity of the BBD with RSM. The analysis of variance indicated that methane production was more sensitive to both NaOH concentration and thermal temperature than reaction time. Thermal-alkaline pretreatment enhanced the improvement of 40% in methane production compared to the control experiment due to the effective hydrolysis and/or solubilization of organic matters. The fractions with molecular weight cut-off of scum in food waste leachate were conducted before and after pre-treatment to estimate the behaviors of organic matters. The experiment results found that thermal-alkaline pre-treatment could reduce the organic matters more than 10kD with increase the organic matters less than 1kD.

• Carbon letters
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.131-137
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• 2011

Kenaf fibers, cellulose-based natural fibers, were used as precursor for preparing kenafbased carbon fibers. The effects of carbonization temperature ($700^{\circ}C$ to $1100^{\circ}C$) and chemical pre-treatment (NaOH and $NH_4Cl$) at various concentrations on the thermal change, chemical composition and fiber morphology of kenaf-based carbon fibers were investigated. Remarkable weight loss and longitudinal shrinkage were found to occur during the thermal conversion from kenaf precursor to kenaf-based carbon fiber, depending on the carbonization temperature. It was noted that the alkali pre-treatment of kenaf with NaOH played a role in reducing the weight loss and the longitudinal shrinkage and also in increasing the carbon content of kenaf-based carbon fibers. The number and size of the cells and the fiber diameter were reduced with increasing carbonization temperature. Morphological observations implied that the micrometer-sized cells were combined or fused and then re-organized with the neighboring cells during the carbonization process. By the pre-treatment of kenaf with 10 and 15 wt% NaOH solutions and the subsequent carbonization process, the inner cells completely disappeared through the transverse direction of the kenaf fiber, resulting in the fiber densification. It was noticeable that the alkali pre-treatment of the kenaf fibers prior to carbonization contributed to the forming of kenaf-based carbon fibers.

• Journal of Adhesion and Interface
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.146-159
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• 2013

In the present study, stabilized rayon fabrics were prepared from fast isothermal stabilization processes, which were carried out within four minutes at $350^{\circ}C$. The effects of ultrasonic cleaning and chemical pre-treatment on the chemical composition, physical characteristics, X-ray diffraction pattern, thermal stability and shape of the stabilized rayon fabrics were investigated extensively. In order to reduce the weight loss and thermal shrinkage of rayon fabrics occurring during the stabilization process, ultrasonic cleaning was first conducted and then chemical pre-treatments using $NH_4Cl$, $Na_3PO_4$, $H_3PO_4$, and $ZnCl_2$ were performed, respectively. The results indicated that both ultrasonic cleaning and chemical pre-treatment influenced the weight loss, thermal shrinkage, microstructure, carbon content, thermal stability and fabric shape of stabilized rayon fabrics. Also the results depended on the fast-stabilization time and the type of chemical pre-treatment agents used.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.107-114
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• 2021

This study applied with pre-treatment combined with thermal hydrolysis and seperation for disintegration of sludge. As results of particle size distribution D10, D50 and D90 of thermal hydrolyzed and centrifuged sludge was 8.6, 59.2 and 425.1 ㎛, which are lower than those of thermal hydrolyzed. The molecular weight distribution results showed that the thermal hydrolyzed sludge showed the highest proportion in the 10-100kDa range. But, Sludge, treated with combined pre-treatment, showed the highest proportion <1kDa range. Results of DOC and UVA₂₅₄ found that the organic matters of hydrolyzed sludge composed high molecular weight component above 10kDa. While, the organic matters of sludge, treated by combined pre-treatment, composed relarively low molecular weight below 1kDa. The specific methane yield of hydrolyzed and centrifuged sludge was higher 1.7 times than that of only hydrolyzed sludge.