• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.468-475
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• 2015

Various methods to degrade explosives efficiently in natural soil and water that include trinitrotoluene (TNT) have been studied. In this study, TNT in water was degraded by reduction with palladium (Pd) catalyst impregnated onto alumina (henceforth Pd-Al catalyst) and formic acid. The degradation of TNT was faster when the temperature of water was high, and the initial TNT concentration, pH, and ion concentration in water were low. The amounts of Pd-Al catalyst and formic acid were also important for TNT degradation in water. According to the experimental results, the degradation constant of TNT with unit mass of Pd-Al catalyst was $8.37min^{-1}g^{-1}$. The degradation constant of TNT was higher than the results of previous studies which used zero valent iron. 2,6-diamino-4-nitrotoluene and 2-amino-4,6-dinitrotoluene were detected as by-products of TNT degradation showing that TNT was reduced. The by-products of TNT were also completely degraded after reaction when both Pd-Al catalyst and formic acid existed. Even though there are several challenges of Pd-Al catalyst (e.g., deactivation, poisoning, leaching, etc.), the results of this study show that TNT degradation by Pd-Al catalyst and formic acid is a promising technique to remediate explosive contaminated water and soil.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.46-53
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• 2018

Mobility reduction of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) was tested by amending monopotassium phosphate (MKP) and montmorillonite to a firing range soil contaminated with TNT. While addition of MKP enhanced sorption of TNT on soil matrix, and combined use of MKP with montmorillonite significantly decreased desorption of TNT as well as remarkably increased the TNT sorption. Montmorillonite amendment by 5% of soil mass resulted in TNT desorption of 0.12 mg/kg from soil loaded with 9.93 mg/kg-TNT. The decrease of TNT desorption was proportional to the amount of montmorillonite amended. At 10 and 15% amendment, only 0.79 and 1.23 mg/kg-TNT was desorbed from 29.33 and 48.80 mg/kg-TNT. In addition, the leaching of TNT with synthetic precipitation leaching procedure (SPLP) and hydroxypropyl-${\beta}$-cyclodextrin (HPCD) decreased, indicating that TNT in MKP/montmorillonite-treated soil became more stable and less leachable. The results demonstrate that addition of MKP and montmorillonite to TNT-contaminated soil reduces the mobility of TNT from soil not only by increasing TNT sorption, but also decreasing TNT desorption. It was found that MKP and montmorillonite amendments by 5 and 10% of soil mass, respectively, were optimal for reducing the mobility of soil TNT.

• Journal of environmental and Sanitary engineering
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.27-31
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• 1996

2,4,6-Trinitrotoluene(TNT) was reduced into intermediate products by mixed culture incubated in anaerobic condition. To test the effects of extracellular material to electron transfer between sulfide and TNT, filtered medium of mixed culture was loaded in the test tubes with TNT and sulfide. The transformation rate was measured under four different conditions. The rate under microbial activity was the fastest among under different conditions. With sulfide or filtrate alone and TNT, the reactions were measured as the slowest reactions or no reactions occured, respectively. The reaction rate coefficient were calculated by linear regression and the first order kinetic was fitted best. Also, the plot of rate coefficients (K$_{f}$) showed linear relationships when at time zero TNT and sulfide concentration were 20 mg/1 and 6.0 mM, respectively. By extrapolation, reaction rate coefficient of 100% filtrate could be calculated as 0.0054/minute. However, reaction rate was affected by different concentration of sulfide, so it is a dependent of sulfide concentration. The results of this test showed TNT reduction rate can be limited more by microbial reaction than by mediation of filtrate or sulfide and filtrate alone.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2001.04a
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• pp.38-41
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• 2001

It has been reported that some plants have the potential to metabolize the 2,4,6-trintroluene (TNT) in contaminated soils, sediments and natural water. In this study, the effects of TNT on germination and early seedling development of Abutilion avicennae was characterized in a germination test. Concentration up to 80 mg/L TNT did not affect germination but root and shoot growth, and fresh biomass decreased as TNT concentration increased. A series of axenic hydroponical batch culture of Abutilion avicennae at various initial TNT concentration was used to determine its transformation kinetics, to identify products formed, and to evaluate phytotoxic effects on the TNT transformation process. At higher initial TNT concentrations, TNT removal rate constant decreased, however, total amount of TNT removed was increased in the culture media. Reductive transformation products of TNT were not detected in the plant culture media but higher concentrations of reduced metabolites were detected in the root and stem extracts of plant material at the 7 days of batch incubation. From these results we concluded that Abutilion avicennae has an intrinsic capacity for taking up and transforming TNT.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.193-198
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• 2002

Several 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) degrading bacteria were isolated from an activated sludge by an enrichment culture technique, and their TNT removal activities were examined. Among the isolates, strain C1 showed the highest degrading capability, and completely removed 100 or 200 mg I$\^$-1/ of TNT within 6 hours of incubation. This bacterium was identified as Klebsiella sp. The effects of different carbon sources on the removal of the parent TNT by Klebsiella sp. C1 were negligible, but the transformation rates of TNT metabolites such as amino-dinitrotoluenes and diamino-nitrotoluenes were higher with fructose addition compared to glucose addition. When nitrate was used as the nitrogen source, the degradation rates of TNT and hydroxylamino-dinitrotoluenes were higher than those with the ammonium addition. Although the TNT removal rate of Klebsiella sp. C1 was slightly higher in anaerobic conditions, the further transformations of TNT metabolites were more favorable in aerobic conditions.

• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.105-111
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• 2002

The biological removal of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) was studied in a bench-scale bioreactor using a bacterial culture of strain OK-5 originally Isolated from soil samples contaminated with TNT. The TNT was completely removed within 4 days of incubation in a 2.5 L bench-scale bioreactor containing a newly developed medium. The TNT was catabolized in the presence of different supplemented carbons. Only minimal growth was observed in the killed controls and cultures that only received TNT during the incubation period. This catabolism was affected by the concentration ratio of the substrate to the biomass. The addition of various nitrogen sources produced a delayed effect for the TNT degradation. Tween 80 enhanced the degradation of TNT under these conditions. Two metabolic intermediates were detected and identified as 2-amino-4, 6-dinitrotoluene and 4-amino-2, 6-dinitrotoluene based on HPLC and GC-MS analyses, respectively. Strain OK-5 was characterized using the BIOLOG system and fatty acid profile produced by a microbial identification system equipped with a Hewlett Packard HP 5890 II gas chromatograph. As such, the bacterium was identified as a Stenotrophomonas species and designated as Stenotrophomonas sp. OK-5.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.495-495
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• 2011

Miniaturized sensors capable of both sensitive and selective real-time monitoring of target analytes are tremendously valuable for various applications ranging from hazard detection to medical diagnostics. The wide-spread use of such sensors is currently limited due to insufficient selectivity for target molecules. We developed selective nanocoatings by combining trinitrotoluene (TNT) receptors bound to conjugated polydiacetylene (PDA) with single-walled carbon nanotube-field effect transistors (SWNT-FET). Selective binding events between TNT molecules and phage display derived TNT receptors were effectively transduced to sensitive SWNT-FET conductance sensors through the PDA coating. The resulting sensors exhibited unprecedented 1 fM sensitivity toward TNT in real time, with excellent selectivity over various similar aromatic compounds. Our biomimetic receptor coating approach may be useful for the development of sensitive and selective micro and nanoelectronic sensor devices for various other target analytes.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Applied Microbiology Conference
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• 2001.06a
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• pp.114-115
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• 2001

• Bioindustry News
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.35-40
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• 2001

• Proceedings of the Microbiological Society of Korea Conference
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• 1999.04a
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• pp.52.1-52.1
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• 1999