• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.236-245
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• 2015

Recently, candles have been widely used to create a romantic atmosphere and to heat tea. In this study, a small combustion chamber for candle was designed using an 0.008 m³ bell jar. The emission factors of combustion products were then measured. The combustion chamber includes a glass dish, which prevents candle flame from affecting the composition of the gas emitted through the exhaust outlet. The outlet in the combustion chamber was designed as a cone shape, and it was lengthened to prevent flow from the outside, which could affect the homogeneous composition of the exhaust gas. The temperature at the outlet of the chamber was 34 ℃~41℃. The major combustion products of the candle, such as such aldehydes and acids, contained oxygen. The mass specific emission rates of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and TVOC were 0.04 μg/g, 0.01 μg/g, 0.02 μg/g, and 3.81, respectively. The mass specific emission rates of formaldehyde, acetaldehyde and benzaldehyde were 4.48 μg/g, 1.09 μg/g, and 0.67 μg/g, respectively. Considering the different compositions of the candle samples, their mass specific emission rates were similar to those obtained by using a large chamber 0.17 m³~50 m³ in size.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.293-300
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• 2010

tert-Butyl acetate (TBAc) is an organic solvent, which is commonly used in architectural coatings and industrial solvents. It has recently been exempted from the definition of a volatile organic compound (VOC) by the Air Resources Board (ARB). Since the use of TBAc as a substitute for other VOCs has increased, thus its potential risk in humans has also increased. However, its inhalation toxicity data in the literature are very limited. Hence, inhalation exposure to TBAc was carried out to investigate its toxic effects in this study. Adult male rats were exposed to TBAc for 4 h for 1 day by using a nose-only inhalation exposure chamber (low dose, $2370\;mg/m^3$ (500 ppm); high dose, $9482\;mg/m^3$ (2000 ppm)). Shamtreated control rats were exposed to clean air in the inhalation chamber for the same period. The animals were killed at 2, 7, and 15 days after exposure. At each time point, body weight measurement, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) analysis, histopathological examination, and biochemical assay were performed. No treatment-related abnormal effects were observed in any group according to time course. Based on those findings, the median lethal concentration ($LC_{50}$) of TBAc was over $9482\;mg/m^3$ in this study. According to the MSDS, the 4 h $LC_{50}$ for TBAc for rats is over $2230\;mg/m^3$. We suggested that this value is changed and these findings may be applied in the risk assessment of TBAc which could be beneficial in a sub-acute study.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.293-301
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• 2008

A study on the operational variables of the UV-TiO$_2$ based photocatalytic air cleaning system was tried. In this study, to examine effects as various air cleaning system conditions, a duct-type reactor was made, and TiO$_2$ was immobilized on a stainless mesh. Benzene was chosen as a target compound. Removal experiments for benzene were done under different initial benzene concentration, air velocity, TiO$_2$ loading, area coated TiO$_2$ as the same TiO$_2$ loading, and UV light intensity conditions. During the experiments, relative humidity was 55%, and reactor temperature was 45$^{\circ}C$. As a result, the photocatalytic degradation of benzene decreased as the inlet concentration increased. But the photocatalytic degradation increased as the concentration boundary layer thickness, amount of TiO$_2$, area coated TiO$_2$ as the same amount of TiO$_2$, and UV light intensity increased. Based on results of current study, they can be applied to the design of air cleaning system over low level VOCs in the indoor air.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.468-475
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• 2005

Biofilters packed with various materials have emerged as a sustainable technology for the treatment of volatile organic compounds (VOCs); however, problems including low performance and clogging are commonly encountered. Recently, a bioactive foam reactor (BFR) using surfactants has been suggested to ensure efficient and stable VOCs removal performance. This study was mainly conducted to investigate the feasibility of BFRs using toluene as a model compound. Prior to bioreactor studies, a series of bottle tests were used to select a suitable surfactant for the BFR application. Experimental results of the batch bottle tests indicated that TritonX-100 was the most appropriate one among the surfactants tested, since it showed a minimal effect on the toluene biodegradation rate while the other surfactants lowered the toluene biodegradation rate significantly. Using the selected surfactant, the BFR performance was determined by changing operating parameters including gas residence time and toluene loading. As the gas residence time increased from 0.5 minutes to 2 minutes, the toluene removal efficiency increased from approximately 50% to 80%. In addition, an increase of the toluene loading from $38\;g/m^3/hr$ to $454\;g/m^3/hr$ resulted in a decrease of toluene removal efficiency from approximately 70% to 20%. The BFR had a maximum elimination capacity of $108\;g/m^3/hr$ for toluene, which was much higher than those generally reported in the literature. The high toluene-elimination performance indicates that the BFR be a potential alternative to the conventional, packed-type biofilters. However, the limitation of toluene solubilization and foam stability at either high or low gas flow rate are still problems to be challenged.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.69-77
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• 2005

The electronic nose (e-nose) has been used in food industry and quality controls in plastic packaging. Recently it finds its applications in medical diagnosis, specifically on detection of diabetes, pulmonary or gastrointestinal problem, or infections by examining odors in the breath or tissues with its odor characterizing ability. Moreover, the use of portable e-nose enables the on-site measurements and analysis of vapors without extra gas-sampling units. This is expected to widen the application of the e-nose in various fields including point-of-care-test or e-health. In this study, a PDA-based portable e-nose was developed using micro-machined gas sensor array and miniaturized electronic interfaces. The rich capacities of the PDA in its computing power and various interfaces are expected to provide the rapid and application specific development of the diagnostic devices, and easy connection to other facilities through information technology (IT) infra. For performance verification of the developed portable e-nose system, Six different vapors were measured using the system. Seven different carbon-black polymer composites were used for the sensor array. The results showed the reproducibility of the measured data and the distinguishable patterns between the vapor species. Additionally, the application of two typical pattern recognition algorithms verified the possibility of the automatic vapor recognition from the portable measurements. These validated the portable e-nose based on PDA developed in this study.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.43 no.6
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• pp.565-571
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• 2010

An innovative application of surfactant-enhanced air sparging(SEAS) technique was developed in this study. Using a laboratory-scale physical model packed with water-saturated sand, air sparging was implemented to remove water-dissolved toluene that was introduced into a specific depth of the system with finite vertical width prior to sparging. An anionic surfactant(Sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate) was introduced into the contaminated layer as in dissolved form in the toluene-contaminated solution for SEAS, whereas no surfactant was applied in the control experiment. Due to the suppressed surface tension of water in the surfactant(and toluene)-containing region, the toluene removal rate increased significantly compared to those without surfactant. More than 70% of the dissolved toluene was removed from the contaminated layer for SEAS application while less than 20% of toluene was removed for the experiment without surfactant. Air intrusion into the contaminated layer during sparging was found to be more effective than that without surfactant, enhancing air contact with toluene-contaminated water, which resulted in improved volatilization of contaminant. This new method is expected to open a new option for remediation of VOC(volatile organic compound)-contaminated aquifer.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.353-362
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• 2023

TOC, which can measure more than 90% of organic substances, can be measured quickly and easily,replacing BOD and COD, which were indicators of organic pollutants. According to water quality pollution control standards, when measuring TOC, if the inorganic carbon ratio in the sample is over 50%, the NPOC (Non-Purgeable Organic Carbon) method should be used. If volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are present at a certain concentration, the TC-IC (subtracting inorganic carbon from total carbon) method should be used. To validate the limitations of these analytical conditions, experiments were conducted by varying the ratio of TOC to IC in purified water and measuring the concentration of TOC in test solutions. The results showed no significant difference between the TC-IC method and the NPOC method. When measuring samples with added VOC standard solutions, it was observed that the carbon loss due to purging was not significant when using the NPOC method. Therefore, it is concluded that the choice of analytical method does not lead to significant differences when VOCs are present in the sample. To account for potential variations in results based on water quality pollution control standards and regulations regarding the approval and testing of environmental measurement devices, a comparison of field sample concentration values was made using two widely used types of TOC analyzers in Korea. The results showed variations of 0.02 to 0.83 mg/L between methods depending on the manufacturer, highlighting the need for caution when selecting an instrument.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Grassland and Forage Science
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.120-124
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• 2014

This study was performed to compare the level of odorous compounds in feces and urine of finishing pigs. Feces and urine from 16 finishing pigs were separately collected for 28-d. Concentrations of volatile organic compound (VOC; phenols and indoles) and volatile fatty acid (VFA; SCFA and BCFA) were measured in feces and urine. Amount of phenols and p-cresol was higher (P<0.05) in urine than in feces. Urinal levels of phenols and p-cresol were 257.8 ppm and 250.9 ppm, and those of fecal phenols and p-cresol were 0.50 ppm and 0.05 ppm, respectively. There was no difference in concentration of indoles from feces (1.0 ppm) and urine (1.8 ppm). Short chain fatty acid (SCFA) level in urine was higher (P<0.05) than in feces showing 4,547 ppm and 863 ppm, respectively. Proportion of acetic acid to total SCFA was higher in urine (94%) than in feces (66%). However, level of branched fatty acid (BCFA) was greater in feces (118 ppm) compare to that of urine (87 ppm). Odorous compounds analyzed in the current study, phenols and SCFA, were contained more in urine than in feces. Greater amount of VFA is typically found in feces than in urine since it is generated in the large intestine. However, urine contained more VFA than feces in the current study. Therefore, it will be necessary to exploit odor reducing techniques especially for pig urine as grassland fertilizer.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.32 no.12
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• pp.1126-1133
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• 2010

A two-stage biofilter was constructed and utilized to determine the removal efficiency when treating dynamic loading of a mixture of odorous compounds including benzene, toluene, p-xylene, ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. A yeast strain, Candida tropicalis, and a sulfur oxidizing bacterial (SOB) strain, Acidithiobacillus caldus sp., were immobilized in polyurethane media and packed in the two-stage biofilter. The experiment of dynamic loading variation was composed of (1) stepwise loading variation of all the odorous compounds (total EC test), (2) stepwise loading variation of each odorous compound, and (3) intermittent loading variation with 2-day-off and 3-day-on. The total EC test showed that the maximum elimination capacity was $61\;g/m^3/hr$ for total VOCs, and 5.2 and $9.1\;g/m^3/hr$ for ammonia and hydrogen, respectively. In addition, the inhibition between VOCs was observed when the loading of each individual VOC was varied. Especially the stepwise increase in toluene loading resulted in decreases of benzene and p-xylene removal efficiencies about 30% and 25%, respectively. However, the inhibition between organic and inorganic compounds was not observed. The intermittent loading variation with 2-day-off and 3-day-on showed that greater than 95% of the overall removal efficiency was restored in two days after the loading resumed. Consequently, the two-stage biofilter packed with immobilized microorganisms showed advantages over conventional biofilters for the simultaneous treatment of the mixture of organic and inorganic odorous compounds.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.242-250
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• 2010

The aim of this study was to investigate the terpenoids of Total Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) released during drying of Cryptomeria japonica using the thermal extractor (TE). Considering the drying process of C. japonica, temperatures of TE were set at $27^{\circ}C$, $60^{\circ}C$, $80^{\circ}C$, $100^{\circ}C$, and $120^{\circ}C$, respectively. As the result, the emission factors of VOCs and terpenoids were increased as temperature increased. The amount of terpenoids included in VOCs emission factors were 87.5%, 81.6%, 83.6%, 90.1%, and 97.3% depending on above temperatures, respectively. Especially at$100^{\circ}C$ and $120^{\circ}C$, the amount of terpenoids were measured more than 90%. ${\delta}$-cadinene was the highest yield at each temperature and 32 types of terpenoids were collected. Emitted terpenoids were classified into the sesquiterpene group which consists of 15 carbon sources. These 32 sesquiterpenes were used for determining the useful bioactivity such as antifungal activity by the agar dilution. As the result, they showed the antifungal activity against Trichophyton rubrum, Trichophyton mentagrophytes, Microsporum gypseum. The 5,000 ppm concentration of terpenoids showed a strong activity with 100% against the 3 fungi. At the 1,000 ppm concentration of terpenoids, the antifungal activities against three fungi were 95.2%, 98.7%, and 97.3%, and their activities were a little inhibited at 100 ppm concentration.