• Journal of Ecology and Environment
• /
• v.41 no.11
• /
• pp.318-327
• /
• 2017

Background: A typical sewage treatment plant is designed for organic and nutrient removal from municipal sewage water and not targeted to eliminate micropollutants such as pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and nano-sized metals which become a big concern for sustainable human and ecological system and are mainly discharged from sewage treatment plant. Therefore, despite contaminant removal by wastewater treatment processes, there are still remaining environmental risks by untreated pollutants in STP (sewage treatment plant) effluents. This study performed aquatic toxicity tests of raw wastewater and treated effluents in two sewage treatment plants to evaluate toxicity reduction by wastewater treatment process and analyze concentration of contaminants to reveal potential toxic factors in STP effluents. Methods: Water samples were collected from each treatment steps of two STPs, and acute and chronic toxicity tests were conducted following USEPA (United States Environmental Protection Agency) and OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) guidelines. Endpoints were immobility for mortality and reproduction effect for estrogenicity. Results: Acute $EC_{50}s$ (median effective concentration) of influents for Seungki (SK) and Jungnang (JN) STPs are $54.13{\pm}32.64%$ and $30.38{\pm}24.96%$, respectively, and reduced to $96.49{\pm}7.84%$ and 100%. Acute toxicity reduction was clearly correlated with SS (suspended solids) concentration because of filter feeding characteristics of test organisms. Chronic toxicity tests revealed that lethal effect was reduced and low concentration of influents showed higher number of neonates. However, toxicity reduction was not related to nutrient removal. Fecundity effect positively increased in treated wastewater compared to that in raw wastewater, and no significant differences were observed compared to the control group in JN final effluent implying potential effects of estrogenic compounds in the STP effluents. Conclusions: Conventional wastewater treatment process reduced some organics and nutritional compounds from wastewater, and it results in toxicity reduction in lethal effect and positive reproductive effect but not showing correlation. Unknown estrogenic compounds could be a reason causing the increase of brood size. This study suggests that pharmaceutical residues and nanoparticles in STP effluents are one of the major micropollutants and underline as one of estrogenic effect factors.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2008.05a
• /
• pp.229-234
• /
• 2008

Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) has started the nation's first biogas-microturbine project in the city of Gongju as an effort to encourage the utilization of wasted biogas containing useful energy source in the form of $CH_4$. The goal of the project is to set up the biogas microturbine co-generation system for utilizing biogas as an energy source and improving the economics of the wastewater treatment plant. Wastewater treatment processes were investigated in depth to find improvement possibility. Changes in internal recirculation ratio and pre-treatment degree are needed to optimize plant operation and biogas production. Biogas pre-treatment system satisfies Capstone's fuel condition requirement with the test result of 99.9% and 90.2% of hydrogen sulphide and ammonia is removal performance. Installation of microturbine and manufacture of heat exchanger to warm anaerobic digester has been done successfully. Expected economic profit produced by the system is coming from energy saving including electricity 115,871kWh/year and heat contained in exhaust gas 579GJ/year.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
• /
• v.45 no.2
• /
• pp.126-137
• /
• 2003

The feasibility study of UV-disinfection system was performed for disinfection of effluent from wastewater treatment plant. Three low-pressure UV lamps of 17, 25, and 41 W were examined with various flow rates. Low-pressure UV lamps of 17W were examined with various turbidity, DOM (dissolved organic matter), and SS (suspended solid). The pilot plant was a flow-through type UV-disinfection system, and the range of exposure time varied from 5 to 40 seconds, turbidity from 0 to 40 NTU, DOM from 0 to 30 mg/L, and SS from 10 to 40 mg/L. The 41W lamp demonstrated complete disinfection showing no survival ratio in all the experimental conditions, and generally 17W and 25W lamps also showed high removal ratio over 97%. For the same UV dose (UV intensity times exposure time), high intensity-short exposure conditions showed better disinfection efficiency than low intensity-long exposure conditions. While the effects of turbidity and DOM were not apparent, the effects of SS was significant on the disinfection efficiency which indicates that SS control before UV-disinfection appears to be necessary to increase removal efficiency. Considering characteristics of effluent from existing wastewater treatment plants, cost-effectiveness, stable performance, and minimum maintenance, the flow-through type UV-disinfection system with high intensity and low-pressure lamps was thought to be a competitive disinfection system for wastewater reclamation.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.65-74
• /
• 1998

Life cycle assessment (LCA) on two different sludge treatment systems, on-site treatment and pipe-collected intensive treatment was performed to estimate the environmental impact in the aspect of global warming effect. As a main parameter of the estimation, $CO_2$ was chosen and quantified through the whole life cycle of the treatment systems including construction, operation and dismantlement. In this study, the changes of $CO_2$ production unit (CPU) by up-scaling n currently used sludge treatment processes were also calculated. As the result, a larger amount of $CO_2$ was exhausted from the construction step of intensive treatment system than that of on-site treatment system, because an additional pipe-collection system was needed in intensive treatment system. However, the total amount of $CO_2$ exhausted from whole life cycle including not only construction and dismantlement but also 15 year-operation and maintenance was reduced by appling intensive treatment.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
• /
• v.4 no.1
• /
• pp.41-48
• /
• 1998

There are several serious problems in treating shipboard wastewater due to special environmental conditions of ship, such as confined space, rolling and pitching, change of temperature and so on. It was suggested that Sequence Batch Reator (SBR) process might be suitable for overcoming above problems in terms of small size, high capacity of treating wastewater and full automation. In this study the SBR process was used for the secondary treatment of shipboard wastewater. The average removal efficiency of DOC, nitrogen, phosphorus and surfactants(MBAS) were studied and the effects of various C/N ration on the efficiency of treatment were investgated. From the experimental results it was convinced that the SBR process would be able to be used as a suitable process for removing organic matters and nitrogen in reuse system of shipboard wastewater.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.1-16
• /
• 1993

This paper describes an investigation to determine whether the activated sludge (AS) process could be used for the treatment of wastewater at the Union Carbide Coporation (UCC) plant in Seadrift, Texas. This plant presently utilizes a waste stabilization pond (WSP) system for treatment of the wastewater. The treatment system consists of an in-plant primary WSP and two off-plant WSPs (secondary and tertiary WSPs), run in series. The total hydraulic detention time of the WSP system is approximately 150 days. Several laboratory-based treatability studies have been conducted to evaluate the performace of the WSP system and the degradability of specific chemical compounds. From an additional study, it was determined that the WSP system was stressed and occasionally operating near the limit of its treatment capacity. The existing primary WSP plays an important role in the overall treatmemt system, because it not only functions as a pH and organic-strength equalization basin, but also serves as a "preconditioning" basin by fermenting high strength organic wastes to volatile organic acids for subsequent degradation in the escondary WSP. However, in view of pending RCRA legislatin conerning the "proposed organic toxicity characteristics limits" (40 CFR Part261: Federal Register, July, 1988), it is possible that the primary WSP will have to be abandoned in favor of alternative treatment options. Therefore the main purpose of this study was to perform activated sludge treatability evaluations for the development of an alternative to the existing primary WSP treatment ststem. In addition, another purpose was to determine the degradability of bis(2-chloroethyl)ether (Chlorex or CX) and benzene(BZ) in the activated sludge process. The presence of these two chemicals in the wastewater of the plant prompted the question of whatedether they could be degraded in an activated sludge system.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
• /
• v.30 no.1
• /
• pp.95-101
• /
• 2014

Overall studies for the N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) formation and treatment methods were conducted. In this study, occurrence in several countries and emerging treatment technologies of NDMA were generally reviewed. The NDMA formation was dependent on pH, contact time, and molar ratio (monochloramine/dimethylamine). The formation was rapidly increased when the molar ratio was greater than 1. It was likely that monochloramine could be related to stimulate NDMA formation. NDMA concentrations in water supply and wastewater plants after disinfection were approximately 10 ng/L and 100 ng/L, respectively. UV oxidation and adsorption processes are regarded as effective technologies for the NDMA removal. It is suggested that the UV oxidation with proper lamps is applied in water supply system.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
• /
• v.28 no.10
• /
• pp.899-905
• /
• 2019

Recently, an innovative method for wastewater treatment and nutrient removal was developed by combining the sequence batch reactor and membrane bioreactor to overcome pollution caused by shipboard sewage. This system is a modified form of the activated sludge process and involves repeated cycles of mixing and aeration. In the present study, the bacterial diversity and dominant microbial community in this wastewater treatment system were studied using the MACROGEN next generation sequencing technique. A high diversity of bacteria was observed in anaerobic and aerobic bioreactors, with approximately 486 species. Microbial diversity and the presence of beneficial species are crucial for an effective biological shipboard wastewater treatment system. The Arcobacter genus was dominant in the anaerobic tank, which mainly contained Arcobacter lanthieri (8.24%), followed by Acinetobacter jahnsonii (5.81%). However, the dominant bacterial species in the aerobic bioreactor were Terrimonas lutea (7.24%) and Rubrivivax gelatinosus (4.95%).

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
• /
• v.8 no.2
• /
• pp.135-142
• /
• 1980

The process of biological treatment of organic wastewater is principally associated with those of self-purification in the natural water environment. The treatment system has e intensive function of stabilizing wastewater more effectively than in natural water, which is like natural water concentrated in a small space. Biological treatment of wastewater involves activated sludge and various modified process, trickling filter, rotating disk, oxidation ditch, etc. for aerobic decomposition and anaerobic processes such as anaerobic decomposition and methane fermentation. The basic characteristic of these processes is the use of mixed culture for the conversion of pollutants. This review forcuses on the various kinds of microorganisms related to each treatment processes. Kinetic analysis of the activated sludge process is discussed in order to understand the basis of control and maintenance of the biological treatment process.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
• /
• v.12 no.2 s.31
• /
• pp.57-64
• /
• 2006

The experiment was carried out to determine the distribution of total coliform the translocation of heavy metals and the salt accumulation in soils following the supply of ground water, the domestic wastewater and the ultraviolet treatment of domestic wastewater during the spinach and the chinese cabbage cultivation. There were not much changes in the Total-N, Total-P and cations in soils following the ultraviolet treatment of the domestic wastewater. However, the density of total coliform was dramatically reduced from 894MPN/100mL to 5MPN/100mL. The diagnosis of composition of soil after the harvest of chinese cabbages and spinach has shown that the concentration of Na$^+$ was 3-4 times higher in plot using domestic wastewater than in plot using ground water. When domestic wastewater and ground water were used in growing spinach md chinese cabbage at 50% each, the application of chemical fertilizers reduced about 25% to 50% compared to the criteria set down by the Rural Development Administration and there was not significant difference in terms of harvest. Using non-ultraviolet treatment of domestic wastewater directly on spinach and chinese cabbage has resulted in excessive density of total coliform at 25,000MPN/100mL. Even when ultraviolet treatment, the density was still high at 2,000MPN/100mL. The high density of total coliform even following ultraviolet treatment of domestic wastewater is considered to be caused by photo-reactivation of micro-organism. When reusing domestic wastewater, the application of sterilization such as ultraviolet, ultrasonic and electron-beam for public health and hygiene reasons may provide safe supply of agricultural water.