• Clean Technology
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2021

Due to the negative impacts of microplastics (MPs) on the ecosystem, the investigation of its occurrence and its treatment from sewage and wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) have received a lot of attention in the recent years. Most MPs are precipitated and removed with the sludge during the treatment process. Proper sludge management is immensely necessary to avoid MP exposure in the environment. However, the domestic research on this aspect is limited. This study reviews appropriate sludge management approaches to decrease environmental MP exposure. This can be achieved through investigating sludge generation and treatment, regulation laws and government policy trends with an emphasis on WWTPs. The ratio of sludge in sewage treatment plants has been observed to be highest in recycling followed by incineration and landfills. Recycling is the highest in fuel followed by construction materials and composting. For WWTPs, the highest ratio is in recycling followed by fuel and landfills, and recycling is confirmed in the following order: incineration > after composting > after solidification > earthworm breeding. Treatment approaches that can increase the exposure of MPs to the ecosystem are considered to be used in landfills and agricultural fields. However, this method is not appropriate given the insufficient capacity of domestic landfills and the sufficient supply of existing chemical and animal manure fertilizers. Instead, it would be rational in terms of environmental preservation to expand the use of fuel and energy in connection with the new and renewable energy policy, and to actively seek the use of sub-materials for construction materials. In order to secure the basic data for the effectiveness of future planning and revision of related laws, it is required to perform an in-depth investigation of the sludge supply and demand status along with the environmental and economic effects.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.67-74
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• 2005

Toxicity tests were performed to evaluate the feasibility of application with prediction models to 10 mixture chemicals (chloroneb, butylbenzylphthalate, pendimethaline, di-n-butylphthalate, di-iso-butylphthalate, diazinon, isofenphos, 2-chlorophenol, 2,4,6-trichlorophenol and p-octylphenol) detected in effluents from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Ten chemicals were selected in the basis of their toxicities to Daphnia magna and the concentrations in effluents measured by GC/MS. Three models including concentration addition (CA), independent action (IA) and effect summation (ES) were employed for the comparison of the predicted and the observed mortality of D. magna exposed to 10 mixture chemicals for 48 hours. With a comparative study it was ineffective to predict the mortality through the CA and the ES prediction model, while the IA prediction model showed a high correlation($r^2\;=\;0.85$). Moreover, the ES model over-estimated the toxicity observed by bioassay experiments about five-fold. Consequently, IA model is a reasonable tool to predict the mixture toxicity of the discharging water from WWTPs.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.112-118
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• 2009

Ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) are chemolithoautotrophs that play a key role in nitrogen removal from advanced wastewater treatment processes. Various AOB species inhabit and their community compositions vary over time in the wastewater treatment bioreactors. In this study, a hypothesis that operational and environmental conditions affect both the community compositions and the diversity of AOB in the bioreactors was proposed. To verify the hypothesis, the clone libraries based on ammonia monooxygenase subunit A were constructed using activated sludge samples from aerobic bioreactors at the Pohang, the Palo Alto, the Nine Springs, and the Marshall wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). In those bioreactors, AOB within the Nitrosomonas europaea, N. oligotropha, N.-like, and Nitrosospira lineages were commonly found, while AOB within the N. communis, N. marina, and N. cryotolerans lineages were rarely detected in the samples. The AOB community structures were different in the bioreactors: AOB within the N. oligotropha lineage were the major microorganisms in the Pohang, the Palo Alto, and the Marshall WWTPs, while AOB within the N. europaea lineage were dominant in the Nine Springs WWTP. The correlations between the AOB community compositions of the wastewater treatment bioreactors and their operational (HRT, SRT, and MLSS) and environmental conditions (temperature, pH, COD, $NH_3$, and $NO_3{^-}$) were evaluated using a multivariate statistical analysis called the Redundancy Analysis (RDA). As a result, COD and $NO_3{^-}$ concentrations in the bioreactors were the statistically significant variables influencing the AOB community structures in the wastewater treatment bioreactors.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.303-311
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• 2022

Gadolinium, commonly used as a contrast agent for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), is discharged into aquatic environments without removal after treatment in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) because of its high stability. In this study, we collected water samples from Suyeong WWTP, Busan, to investigate the dissolved rare earth element (REE) removal capacity of each wastewater treatment process and to evaluate the discharge of anthropogenic Gd (Gd_anth) from effluents. As wastewater passed through each stage of treatment, the concentrations of light REEs (La-Eu) decreased, whereas those of heavy REEs (Tb-Lu) were relatively consistent. Negative Sm anomalies (<1) were observed in several samples, indicating that Sm can be removed by adsorption onto particles or phosphate during the biological removal process. Positive Gd anomalies (149±50, n=9) were observed in all samples. The ratios of Gd_anth concentrations to measured Gd concentrations in all wastewater treatment processes were higher than 97%. This indicates that Gd_anth was discharged to the Suyeong River without removal during the wastewater treatment process. Considering the daily treatment capacity in each process, the total flux of Gd_anth was estimated to be 259 mmol/day. Our results suggest that mid- and/or long-term monitoring of Gd is needed because Gd_anth is continuously discharged into Suyeong Bay through WWTPs.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.113-124
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• 2006

The feasibility of the up- and down-flow constructed wetland was examined fur rural wastewater treatment in Korea. Many constructed wetland process was suffered from substrate clogging and high plant stresses because of long term operation. The up- and down-flow constructed wetland process used porous granule materials (charcoal pumice : SSR=10:20:70) for promoting intake rate of nutrient to plant, and especially flow type was designed continuously repeating from up-flow to down-flow. $BOD_5$ and SS was removed effectively by the process with the average removal rate being about 75% respectively. The wetland process was effective in treating nutrient as well as organic pollutant. Removal of TN and TP were more effective than other wetland system and mean effluent concentrations were approximately 7.5 and $0.4mg\;L^{-1}$ which satisfied the water quality standard for WWTPs. The treatment system did not experience any clogging or accumulations of pollutants and reduction of treatment efficiency during winter period because constructed polycarbonate glass structure prevented temperature drop. Considering stable performance and effective removal of pollutant in wastewater, low maintenance, and cost-effectiveness, the up- and down-flow constructed wetland was thought to be an effective and feasible alternative in rural area.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.253-260
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• 2016

To reduce energy consumption in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), renewable energy applications such as small hydropower, solar energy, and wind energy are popular. However, it should be noticed that energy originated from operation of wastewater treatment process can be reduced through optimized operation based on analysis of factors affecting energy. In this research, the relationship to the various operational variables and influent factors was explored using correlation analysis and decision tree algorithm. Due to the non-linear characteristics of the process, it was difficult to find clear linear patterns through correlation analysis. However, decision tree algorithm showed its usefulness in uncovering hidden patterns that consume energy. As operational factors, influent flowrate, the amount of aeration, nitrate recycling pumping rate, and sludge wasting pumping rate were selected as important factors. For environmental factors associated with influent compositions and removal rate, BOD and T-N removal rate were selected as significant factors.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.399-408
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• 2012

The overall goal of this study was to characterize and quantify ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) in four different full-scale sequence batch reactor (SBR) wastewater treatment plants. Also, this study focused on assessing the occurrence of the alternative ammonia-oxidizing microbes such as anammox (anaerobic ammonia oxidation) bacteria (AMX) and ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) in these systems. Based on total AOB numbers and the estimated cell density in the mixed liquor samples, AOB constituted 0.3 - 1.8% of the total bacterial population in the four WWTPs. Based on clone library, Nitrosomonas ureae-like AOB were dominant in plant A and B, while plant C and D had Nitrosomonas nitrosa-like AOB as major AOB group. The four different AMX primer sets targeting AMX 16S rRNA gene produced PCR amplicons distantly related to Chlamydia and Planctomycetales group bacteria. However, it was not clear these groups of bacteria perform anammox reaction in the SBR plants. Also, molecular evidence of AOA was found in one of the SBR plants, with a sequence located in the deep branch of the sediment creanarchaeota group.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.155-162
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• 2018

Process modeling with activated sludge models (ASMs) is useful for the design and operational improvement of biological nutrient removal (BNR) processes. Effective utilization of ASMs requires the influent fraction analysis (IFA) of the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). However, this is difficult due to the time and cost involved in the design and operation steps, thereby declining the simulation reliability. Harmony Search (HS) algorithm was utilized herein to determine the relationships between composite variables and state variables of the model IWA ASM1. Influent fraction analysis was used in estimating fractions of the state variables of the WWTP influent and its application to 9 wastewater treatment processes in South Korea. The results of influent $S_s$ and $Xs+X_{BH}$, which are the most sensitive variables for design of activated sludge process, are estimated within the error ranges of 8.9-14.2% and 3.8-6.4%, respectively. Utilizing the chemical oxygen demand (COD) fraction analysis for influent wastewater, it was possible to predict the concentrations of treated organic matter and nitrogen in 9 full scale BNR processes with high accuracy. In addition, the results of daily influent fraction analysis (D-IFA) method were superior to those of the constant influent fraction analysis (C-IFA) method.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.36-44
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• 2013

HSPF model based on BASINS was applied to analyze effects of watershed management measures for water quality conservation in the Hwaseong Reservoir watershed. The model was calibrated against the field measurements of meteorological data, streamflow and water qualities ($BOD_5$, T-N, T-P) at each observatory for 4 years (2007-2010). The water quality characteristics of inflow streams were evaluated. The 4 scenarios for the water quality improvement were applied to inflow streams and critical area from water pollution based on previous researches. The reduction efficiency of point and non-point sources in inflow streams was evaluated with each scenario. The results demonstrate that the expansion of advanced treatment system within wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and construction of pond-wetlands would be great effective management measures. In order to satisfactory the target water quality of reservoir, the measures which can control both point source and non-point source pollutants should be implemented in the watershed.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.643-643
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• 2012

Increasing energy prices and growing concerns about global warming address the need to improve energy self-sufficiency in many industrial and municipal sectors. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are representative of energy-consuming facilities in Korea, accounting for 5% of national energy consumption. We present renewable energy technologies and energy self-sufficiency scenarios in a municipal WWTP ($30,000m^3d^{-1}$) located in Yongin, South Korea. By employing photovoltaics (PV, 135 kW), small hydropower turbine (10 kW), and thermal energy from treated effluent (25 RT: refrigeration ton) within the WWTP, a total of 142 tonne of oil equivalent (toe) of energy was estimated to be generated, accounting for $365ton\;CO_2\;yr^{-1}$ of greenhouse gas emission reduction. Core renewable technologies under consideration include 1) hybrid solar PV system consisting of fixed PV, dual-axis PV, and building integrated PV, 2) low-head small hydropower plant specifically designed for treated effluent, 3) effluent heat recovery system for heating and air conditioning. In addition to these core technologies, smart operation and management scheme will be presented for enhancing overall energy savings and distribution within the WWTP.