• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.377-384
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• 2019

People currently spend more than 80% of their time indoors; therefore, the management of indoor air quality has become an important issue. The contamination of indoor air can cause sick house syndrome and various environmental diseases such as atopy and nephropathy. Formaldehyde gas, which is the main contaminant of indoor air, is lethal even with microscopic exposure; however, it is commonly used as an adhesive and waterproofing agent for indoor building materials. Therefore, there is a need for a gas sensor capable of detecting trace amounts of formaldehyde gas. In this review, we summarize recent studies on metal oxide-based semiconductor gas sensors for formaldehyde gas detection, methods to improve the gas-sensing properties of metal oxides of various dimensions, and the effects of catalysts for the detection of parts-per-billion level gases. Through this, we discuss the necessary characteristics of the metal oxidebased semiconductors for gas sensors for the development of next-generation sensors.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.155-163
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• 1999

Heavy metal accumulation in living organisms through food-wed can give serious damage on physiological responses for vital activities. The initiation of heavy metal supposed to begin from the bio-accumulation of plants. To establish basic data fur heavy metal contents in plants at the area without artificial contamination, both woody and herb plants at Mt. Kwang-Duk were studied. The content of heavy metals in various organs of plants were analyzed by ICP. The range of heavy metals in plants for Al, As, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe. Mn, Pb, Se and Zn were 1.019∼257.200ppm, O∼2.929ppm, 0∼0.079ppm, 0∼0.054ppm, 0.023∼3.007ppm, 0∼1.997ppm, 2.031∼148.500ppm, 1.069∼51.320ppm, O∼126.900ppm, 0.708∼4.927ppm and 0.846∼4.949ppm, respectively. The amount of heavy metals in plants are much less than that of soil except some species. In woody plants, it was detected that the metal contents of leaves were higher than that of stems especially in case of Al and Fe with statistical significance. There were significant differences between shoots and roots of herb plants in metal content of Al, Co and Fe. Those metals have more accumulated in roots comparing with shoots. Some species of plants had shown the difference tendency of heavy metal accumulation. Generally, most species had not exceeded over twice of mean value each other, and had various difference according to the kinds of heavy metals.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.77-87
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• 2006

Micro- or nano-size particles are required to improve the combustion efficiency and stability in the case of solid explosives and propellants. The micro-structural properties of an energetic material strongly influence the combustion and explosion behavior. However, the traditional size reduction techniques, including milling, are not suitable for production of ultra-fine size particles. As an alternative to the traditional techniques, various re-crystallization processes based on supercritical fluids have recently been proposed. Supercritical fluids are fluids at temperatures and pressures above their critical point. In principle, they do not give problems of solvent contamination as they are completely released from the solute when the decompression occurs. Rapid Expansion Supercritical Solutions(RESS) and Supercritical Anti-Solvent Process(GAS/SAS) are representatives of a nano-size particle formation process of energetic materials using supercritical fluids. In this work, various fine particle formation processes using supercritical fluids are discussed and the results are presented.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.55-63
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• 2007

PCDD/Fs monitoring was carried out to estimate the contamination level in soil samples taken in the vicinity of the various incinerators throughout South Korea from July 2003 to December 2004. The levels ranged from N.D. to 130.39 pg I-TEQ/g (d.w.) with an average concentration of 11.38 pg I-TEQ/g (d.w.). The level of PCDD/Fs in this study is similar to that of other countries. Overall, the highest mean concentration in the soil was found at 250 m from the stack. In addition, the flue gases were analyzed in order to obtain the congener profiles of the PCDD/Fs emitted from the incinerators. The concentration of I-TEQ in the flue gas ranged from 0.33 to 21.5 ng TEQ/$Sm^3$. These levels were much lower than the concentration stipulated in the Korean emission criterion(40 ng TEQ/$Sm^3$ until 2005). The comparison of the congener patterns using cluster analysis showed that the incinerators and PCP are sources of PCDD/Fs in the soil samples according to the sampling point, but the possibility of unidentified combustion sources and vehicles exists in the case of complex industrial regions.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.343-349
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• 2004

The adsorption of soot particles onto a sensor surface of the engine soot detector posses a critical problem in the measurement. In order to prevent the optical rod surface from soot contamination, various functional coatings and flow-induced cleaning were applied to the surface in this work. For surface coatings, various materials of self-assembled monolayers (SAM) such as OTS (octadecyltrichlorosilane), PFDTES (perfluorodecyl-triethoxysilane) and PFDTMS (perfluorodecyltrimethoxysilane) were coated on the optical rod surface ,which have different characteristics in both hydrophobicity and oleophobicity. These coatings were tested with soot content varying from $0\%\;to\;3wt\%$ and oil temperature from 20 to $70^{\circ}C$. Test results showed that surface coatings were not effective for preventing the adsorption of soot panicles on the surface of optical rod. It was thought that these coatings provided the surface with additional attractive surface forces. However, it was found that adsorption of soot particles onto a sensor surface was minimized by flow-induced cleaning. This effect was tested with varying the flow velocity.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2003.09a
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• pp.368-371
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• 2003

Accidental release of petroleum products from underground storage tank(USTs) is one of the most common causes of groundwater contamination. BTEX is the major components of fuel oils, which are hazardous substances regulated by many nations. In addition to BTEX, other gasoline consituents such as MTBE(methyl-t-buthyl ether), anphthalene are also toxic to humans. Natual attenuation processes include physic, chemical, and biological trasformation. Aerobic and anaerobic biodegradation are believed to be the major processes that account for both containment of the petroleum-hydrocarbon plum and reduction of the contaminant concentrations. Aerobic bioremediation has been highly effective in the remediation of many fuel releases. However, Bioremediation of aromatic hydrocarbons in groundwater and sediments is ofen limited by the inability to provide sufficient oxygen to the contaminated zones due to the low water solubility of oxygen. Anaerobic processes refer to a variety of biodegradation mechanisms that use nitrate, ferric iron, sulfate, and carbon dioxide as terminal electron accepters. The objectives of this study was to conduct laboratory-scale microcosm studies in assessing enhanced bioremediation potential of BTEX and MTBE under various electron accepters(aerobic, nitrate, ferric iron, sulfate) in contaminated Soil. these results suggest that, presents evidence and a variety pattern of the biological removal of aromatic compounds under enhanced nitrate-, Fe(III)-, sulfate-reducing conditions.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.1-5
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• 2016

Rhodamine B Hydrazide as a novel fluorescent and colorimetric probe exhibiting remarkably selective fluorescence enhancement toward Hg²⁺ ion over other 16 metal ions is herein introduced. The probe reacts with Hg²⁺ ion followed by its spirolactam ring-opening to give a remarkable enhancement of absorption maximum at 550 nm as well as an enhanced fluorescence intensity at 580 nm in aqueous media. Upon titration with Hg²⁺ ion in various concentration of 10~200 uM, we found that the probe shows a marked color change from colorless to pink, enabling naked-eye detection toward mercury ion. In addition, in the presence of Hg²⁺ ion, the probe gave rise to change from non-florescence to strong orange fluorescence (Off-On) with a good linearity of R²=0.97. This preliminary results demonstrate that the fluorescent chemosensor we herein introduced can open a new strategy for marked selective and sensitive detection of mercury ions in contaminated soil containing various metal ions.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2004.04b
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• pp.26-29
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• 2004

High density plasma fluorinated silicate glass (HDP FSG) is used as a gap fill film for metal-to-metal space because of many advantages. However, FSG films can cause critical problems such as bonding issue of top metal at package, metal contamination, metal peel-off, and so on. It is known that these problems are caused by fluorine penetration out of FSG film. To prevent it, FSG capping layers such like SRO (Silicon Rich Oxide) are needed. In this study, their characteristics and a capability to block fluorine penetration for various FSG capping layers are investigated. Normal stress and High stress due to denser film. While heat treatment to PETEOS caused lower blocking against fluorine penetration, it had insignificant effect on SiN. Compared with other layers, SRO using ARC chamber and SiN were shown a better performance to block fluorine penetration.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.195-203
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• 2018

N-acetylcysteine (NAC) has been widely used as an initial mucolytic agent and is generally used as an antioxidant to help alleviate various inflammatory symptoms. NAC reduces bacterial extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) production, bacterial adhesion to the surface and strength of mature biofilm. The efficacy has been shown to inhibit proliferation of gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. In membrane bioreactor (MBR) processes, which contain a variety of gram negative bacteria, biofilm formation has become a serious problem in stable operation. In this study, use of NAC as an inhibitor of biofilm contamination was investigated using the center for disease control (CDC) reactors with MBR sludge. Biomass reduction was confirmed with CLSM images of membrane surfaces by addition of NAC, which was more efficient as the concentration of NAC was increased to 1.5 mg/mL. NAC addition also showed decreases in EPS concentrations of the preformed biofilm, indicating that NAC was able to degrade EPS in the mature biofilm. NAC addition was also effective to inhibit biofilm formation by MBR sludge, which consisted of various microorganisms in consortia.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.801-806
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• 2004

The pilot study was conducted to (i) investigate the ability of various membrane integrity monitoring methods to detect changes in membrane integrity during operation, and (ii) determine the impact of membrane damage on microbial removal by microfiltration. Two variations of air pressure hold tests were investigated for direct integrity monitoring: pressure decay (PD) and diffusive air flow (DAF) tests which are most commonly used integrity tests for microfiltration (MF) membranes. Both PD and DAF tests were sensitive enough to detect one damaged fiber out of 66,000 under field operaing conditions. Indirect integrity monitoring such as turbidity and particle counting, however, responded poorly to defects in membrane systems. Microbial challenge study was performed using both new and deliberately damaged membranes, as well as varying the state of fouling of the membrane. This study demonstrated that MF membrane with nominal pore size $0.2{\mu}m$ was capable of removing various pathogens including coliform, spore, and cryptosporidium, at the level required by drinking water regulations, even when high operating pressures were applied. A sharp decrease in average log reduction value (LRV) was observed when one fiber was damaged, emphasizing the importance of membrane integrity in control of microbial contamination.