• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.23-28
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• 1999

Phosphate removal through adsorbent, such as activated alumina, powdered aluminum oxide, flyash, blasted furnace slag and other materials, is commonly and widely practiced. The purpose of this study was to improve the removal efficiency of phosphorus in waste sludge earned at seafood processing factories. To investigate the utility and the feasibility of this sludge disposal process, experiment was carried out with a batch process. As a result, phosphate removal appears to increase with increasing adsorbent does, but shows no changes at an adsorbent does over 5g/l. With increasing ratios of initial phosphate concentration to adsorbent does, the amount of removed phosphate is increased while phosphate removal(%) is decreased. Wasted sludge, treated with zinc chloride chemically, represented a better efficiency than the untreated activated sludge and zinc chloride itself, when they reacted with phosphate solution.

• Journal of Korea Society of Waste Management
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• v.35 no.8
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• pp.701-708
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• 2018

Chemical batch tests were conducted to investigate the amount of nutrients that were released from the wasted activated sludge during microwave heating. For this study, three types of activated sludge were obtained from $A_2/O$, MLE and oxidation ditch (OD) processes. Polyphosphate-accumulating organisms in the activated sludge have a unique trait: they releases phosphate from the cell when they are exposed to high temperatures. The sludge obtained from the $A_2/O$ process released the largest amount of phosphate, followed by those from the MLE and OD processes. The release of phosphate increased with increasing polyphosphate content in the sludge under strongly alkaline or acidic conditions. Furthermore, ammonia and heavy metals were released with phosphorous. The largest amount of ammonia was observed from the sludge obtained from the MLE process. The release of heavy metals strongly depends on the pH conditions. Therefore, the chemical analysis results strongly suggest that both phosphorus and ammonia react with $Mg^{2+}$ or $Ca^{2+}$ to form metal complexes such as magnesium ammonium phosphate or hydroxyapatite under alkaline conditions.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.264-270
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• 2006

In this research, volume reduction of activated sludge using electrolysis was studied to find an optimum condition using lab scale experiments. Wasted sludge was treated by electrolysis with controlling current density, chloride concentration, electrode distance, and reaction time. Volume of return sludge was reduced by 9.79% in average while maximum was 16.7%. Sludge volume reduction efficiency was affected by current density and reaction time. It was reversely proportional to the electrode distance. Especially current density was effective on the system performance significantly. Electric conductivity, salinity and COD were increased by electrolysis implying sludge disintegrated and converted to COD in part. An empirical equation for total solid removal efficiency by electrolysis was proposed by multiple linear regression analysis as: $TS_{rem}$(%) = 5.534 ${\times}$ current density (A/l) + 0.178 ${\times}$ reaction time (m) + 2.758.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.346-351
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• 2004

Because of being produced a great deal of excess sludges from biological wastewater treatment process, the subject regarding treatment and disposal of them has been significantly handled in real plants. It should be considered the alternative treatment with easy operating and cost effective process in rural areas. For the thickening of wasted activated sludge from small scale wastewater treatment facilities, thus, the provisional sludge thickening system was developed by the application of mesh filter module. Three meshes with different pore size(100, 150, $200{\mu}m$) were prepared for filter modules that were used to withdraw effluent from thickening system. A filter module with $100{\mu}m$ mesh was chosen as the most effective thickening material in the viewpoint of volume reduction and effluent quality: the volume reductions of initially injected sludge with 3,600 mg/L and 9,100 mg/L were 95% and 85%, respectively, and the filtered effluents were enough good to be shown below 1.0 mg/L of SS and 1.0 NTU of turbidity. Since the filtration of thickening was influenced by the cake layer formed on mesh filter module and this system was operated in the combination of sludge thickening with gravity settling, the filter modules with smaller pore size and the larger floc size were required for long term operation safely.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.209-221
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• 2024

This study explored effects of a sludge-based biochar addition on nitrogen removal of membrane bioreactor (MBR) for wastewater treatment. The membrane fouling reduction by the biochar addition was also investigated. A dose of 3 g/L of the biochar was applied to an MBR (i.e., BC-MBR) and treatment efficiencies of organic matter and nutrient were analyzed. The MBRs with powdered activated carbon (i.e., AC-MBR) and without any additives were also operated in parallel. The average removals of COD and TN were improved with the biochar addition compared to those with the control MBR. Interestingly, operational duration was also increased with biochar addition. The CLSM analysis revealed that biomass amounts of BC-MBR and AC-MBR were reduced by more than 40%, and thickness of the biofilm attached to the membrane surface also was decreased. The physical properties of biochar surfaces were compared with a commercial powdered activated carbon. The specific surface area with 38 m²/g and pore volume with 0.13 cm³/g of the biochar were much smaller than those of the powdered activated carbon, which were 1100 m²/g and 0.67 cm³/g, respectively. Manufacturing conditions for the biochar production needs to be further investigated for enhancing physical properties for adsorption and biological improvement.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.327-332
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• 2004

This study was carried out to examine the effect of gamma irradiation on the physico-chemical characteristics and ultimate anaerobic biodegradability of sewage sludge. The results found that the solubilization rates of SCOD in wasted activated sludge(WAS) and thickened sludge(T-S) with gamma irradiation of 3kGy were 8 times and 7 times greater than these of the raw WAS and T-S without the irradiation, respectively; each soluble concentration protein were 4 times and 3 times greater than these of the raw WAS and T-S; each soluble carbohydrate concentration was 8 times and 6 times greater than these of the raw WAS and T-S. The ultimate anaerobic biodegradabilities of WAS and T-S with gamma irradiation were 51 % and 50%, which corresponds to each 8% and 10% greater than these of the raw sludges. Approximately 83% and 81% of the each biodegradable substrates in the irradiated WAS and the T-S were degraded within 11 days with the first order decay rate coefficients, $k_1$ that ranged $0.143{\sim}0.164day^{-1}$ for WAS and $0.134{\sim}0.152day^{-1}$ for T-S. Based on the results, it can be concluded that when irradiated with gamma the solubilization of sewage sludge greatly increases resulting in substrates suitable for the subsequent biological treatment processes.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.503-515
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• 2014

A lot of existing wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are rebuilt or retrofitted for advanced wastewater treatment processes to cope with reinforced effluent criteria of nitrogen and phosphorous. Moreover, how to treat the wasted sludge from WWTPs has been also issued since the discharge of the wasted sludge into ocean is impossible from 2011 due to the London Convention 97 protocol. These trend changes of WWTPs get a motivation to assess environmental and economic impacts from the construction stage to the waste stage in WWTPs. Therefore, this study focuses on evaluation of environmental and economic impacts of the advanced wastewater treatment processes and waste sludge treatment process by using life cycle assessment. Four advanced wastewater treatment processes of Anaerobic/Anoxic/Oxic ($A_2O$), 5 stages-Bamard Denitrification Phosphate (Bardenpho), Virginia Initiative Plant (VIP), and Modified University of Cape Town (MUCT) are chosen to compare the conventional activated sludge (CAS) and three waste sludge treatment methods of land fill, incineration, and composting are used. To evaluate environmental and economic impacts of each advanced wastewater treatment processes, life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle cost (LCC) are conducted based on International organization for standardization (ISO) guidelines. The results clearly represent that the $A_2O$ process with composting shows 52% reduction in the environmental impact than the CAS process with landfill. On the other hand, the MUCT process with composting is able to save 62% of the life cycle cost comparing with the CAS process with landfill. This result suggested the qualitative and quantitative criteria for evaluating eco-environmental and economic technologies of advanced treatment processes and also sludge treatment method, where their main influence factors on environmental and economic impacts are analyzed, respectively. The proposed method could be useful for selecting the most efficient and eco-friendly wastewater treatment process and sludge treatment method when retrofitting the existing WWTPs to advanced treatments.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.994-1001
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• 2001

An easier way of understanding the BNR system was proposed from the study on substrate, nutrient removal tendency, microbial community and its metabolic function by applying the municipal settled sewage. During the anaerobic period, the phosphorus release rate per VFACOD we varied depending on the phosphorus content in the sludge. When the phosphorus content in the sludge was $6\%$ VSS, according to influent VFACOD, the phosphorus release rate and PHA production were $0.35 gPO_4P/gVFACOD$ and 1.0 gPHA/gVFACOD, respectively. The $NO_3N$ requirement for the phosphorus uptake as an electron acceptor was about $0.5 gNO_3N/gPO_4P_{uptake}$ based on the proposed equation with PHA, biomass, production, and the concentration of phosphorus release/uptake. Bacterial-community analysis of the sludge, as determined by FISH and 16SrDNA characterization FISH, revealed that the beta-subclass proteobacteria were the most abundant group ($27.9\%$ of the proteobacteria-specific probe EUB338), and it was likely that representative of the beta-subclass played key roles in activated sludge. The next dominant group found was the gamma-protebacteria ($15.4\%$ of probe EUB338). 16S rDNA clone library analysis showed that the members of${\beta}$- and ${\gamma}$-proteobacteria were also the most abundant groups, and $21.5\%$ (PN2 and PN4) and $15.4\%$ (PN1 and PN5) of total clones were the genera of denitrifying bacteria and PAO, respectively. Prediction of the microbial community composition was made with phosphorus content (Pv, $\%$ P/VSS) in wasted sludge and profiles of COD, PHA, $PO_4P,\;and\;NO_3N$ in an anaerobic-anoxic SBR unit. Generally, the predicted microbial composition based upon metabolic function, i.e., as measured by stoichiometry, is fairly similar to that measure by the unculturable dependent method. In this study, a proposal was made on he microbial community composition that was more easily approached to analyze the reactor behavior.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.212-221
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• 2011

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are required to meet the reinforced discharge standards which are differentiated as 0.2, 0.3 and 0.5 mg-TP/L for the district I, II and III, respectively. Although most of WWTPs are operating advanced biological phosphorus removal system, the supplementary phosphorus treatment facility using chemical addition should be required almost at all WWTPs. Therefore, water quality data from several exemplary full-scale plants operating phosphorus treatment process were analyzed to evaluate the reliability of removal performance. Additionally, a series of jar tests were conducted to find optimal coagulants dose for phosphorus removal by chemical precipitation and to describe characteristics of the reaction and sludge production. Chemical costs and the increasing sludge volume in physicochemical phosphorus removal process were estimated based on the results of jar tests. The minimum coagulant (aluminium sulfate and poly aluminium chloride) doses to keep TP concentration below 0.5 and 0.2 mg/L were around 25 and 30 mg/L (as $Al_2O_3$), respectively, in the mixed liquor of activated sludge. In the tertiary treatment facility, relatively lower coagulant doses of 1/12~1/3 the minimum doses for activated sludge were required to achieve the same TP concentrations of 0.2~0.5 mg/L. Increase in suspended solids concentration due to chemical precipitates in mixed liquor was estimated at 10~11%, compared to the concentration without chemical addition. When coagulant was added into mixed liquor, chemical (aluminium sulfate) cost was estimated to be 4~10 times higher than in secondary effluent coagulation/separation process. Sludge production to be wasted was also 4~10 times higher than secondary effluent coagulation/separation process.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.555-561
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• 2005

A new graphical method was developed to separate two distinctive decay rate coefficients($k_1$ and $k_2$) at their respective degradable substrate fractions($S_1 and $S_2$). The mesophilic batch reactor showed $k_1$ of $0.151\;day^{-1}$ for wasted activated sludge(WAS), $0.123\;day^{-1}$ for thickened sludge(T-S), $0.248{\sim}0.358\;day^{-1}$ at S/I ratio of $1{\sim}3$ for sorghum and $0.155{\sim}0.209\;day^{-1}$ at S/I ratio $0.2{\sim}1.0$ for swine waste, whereas their long term batch decay rate coefficients($k_2$) were $0.021\;day^{-1}$, $0.001\;day^{-1}$, $0.03\;day^{-1}$ and $0.04\;day^{-1}$ respectively. At least an order of magnitude difference between $k_1$ and $k_2$ was routinely observed in the batch tests. The portion of $S_1$, which degrades with each $k_1$ appeared 71% for WAS, 39% for T-S, 90% for sorghum, and $84{\sim}91%$ at S/I ratio of $0.2{\sim}1.0$ for swine waste. Ultimate biodegradabilities of 50% for WAS, 40% of T-S, $82{\sim}92%$ for sorghum, and $81{\sim}89%$ for swine waste were observed.