• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.754-768
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• 2017

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are a group of industrial aromatic organobromine chemicals that have been used since the 1970s as flame retardants in a wide range of consumer products and articles, including plastics, computers, textiles and upholstery. Commercial PBDEs were added to Annex A of the Stockholm Convention as persistent organic pollutants in May 2009. PBDEs are still frequently found in sludge and effluent from wastewater treatment plants, even though commercial PBDEs were prohibited or voluntarily phased out several years ago. Conventional wastewater treatment processes are not designed to effectively remove PBDEs. This indicates that there is an urgent need for new developments and improvements to enhance upon the treatment techniques which are currently available. Several studies have suggested the potential removal and degradation technologies for PBDEs in wastewater. In this study, the concentrations and compositional profiles of PBDE congeners in sludge and effluent are investigated by analyzing the relevant literature data in relation to their usage patterns in commercial products in North America and South Korea. The strengths and weaknesses of the current PBDEs removal techniques (i.e., biodegradation, zero-valent iron, photolysis, sorption, etc.) are discussed critically. In addition, future research direction regarding the treatment and removal of PBDEs from wastewater is also suggested, based on the literature review.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.231-243
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• 2015

Four different paddy soils collected around the Gyeongju nuclear site were treated with $^{99}TcO_4{^-}$ solution under the assumption of two contrasting contamination scenarios. Scenario I (SN-I) is for a pre-transplanting deposition of $^{99}Tc$ followed by plowing, whereas SN-II is for its deposition onto the water surface shortly after transplanting. Rice plants were grown in lysimeters in a greenhouse. Plant uptake of $^{99}Tc$ was quantified with the $TF_{area}$ ($m^2{\cdot}kg^{-1}-dry$). The SN-II $TF_{area}$ values for straws and brown rice, having been generally higher than the SN-I values, were within the ranges of $6.9{\times}10^{-3}{\sim}4.1{\times}10^{-2}$ and $5.2{\times}10^{-6}{\sim}7.3{\times}10^{-5}$, respectively. Sorption onto clay seems to have decreased $^{99}Tc$ uptake in SN-I, whereas it may have had an insignificant effect in SN-II. A phenomenon characteristic of submerged paddy soil, i.e., the development of a thin oxic surface layer may have greatly affected the rice uptake of SN-II $^{99}Tc$. The surface-water concentrations of $^{99}Tc$ were much higher in SN-II than in SN-I. For the percolating water, however, the opposite was generally true. At most 1.3% of the applied $^{99}Tc$ were leached through such percolation. The use of empirical deposition time-dependent $TF_{area}$ values was considered desirable in assessing the radiological impact of a growing-season deposition of $^{99}Tc$ onto paddy fields.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.310-315
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• 2012

A simple drying process was developed for the preparation of a Pt/Nafion self-humidifying membrane to be used for a proton-exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). Platinum (II) bis (acetylacetonate), $Pt(acac)_2$ was sublimed, penetrated into the surface of a Nafion film and then reduced to Pt nanoparticles simultaneously without any support of a reducing agent in a glass reactor at $180^{\circ}C$ for 15 min. The process was carried out in $N_2$ atmosphere to prevent the oxidation of Pt nanoparticles at high temperature. The morphology and distribution of the Pt nanoparticles were observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), and we found that the average Pt particle size was ca. 3.7 nm, the penetration depth was ca. $17{\mu}m$. Almost all Pt nanoparticles were formed just beneath the surface and the number density decreased rapidly as the penetration depth increased. To estimate water absorption characteristics of the Nafion membranes, water uptake at an isothermal condition was measured by dynamic vapor sorption (DVS), and it was found that water uptake of the Pt/Nafion membrane was higher than that of the neat Nafion membrane.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.159-168
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• 2018

Climate change is believed to increase the amount of dissolved organic matter in surface water, as a result of the release of bulk organic matter, which make difficult to achieve a high quality of drinking water via conventional water treatment techniques. Therefore, the natural water treatment techniques, such as managed aquifer recharge (MAR), can be proposed as a alternative method to improve water quality greatly. Removal of bulk organic matter using managed aquifer recharge system is mainly achieved by biodegradation. Biodegradable dissolved organic carbon (BDOC) and assimilable organic carbon (AOC) can be used as water quality indicators for biological stability of drinking water. In this study, we compared the change of BDOC and AOC with respect to pretreatment methods (i.e., ozone or peroxone). The oxidative pretreatment can transform the recalcitrant organic matter into readily biodegradable one (i.e., BDOC and AOC). We also investigated the differences of organic matter characteristics between BDOC and AOC. We observed the decreases in dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and the tryptophan-like fluorescence intensities. Liquid chromatographic - organic carbon detection (LC-OCD) analysis also showed the reduction of the low molecular weight (LMW) fraction (15% removed, less than 500 Da), which is known to be easily biodegradable, and the biopolymers, high molecular weight fractions (66%). Therefore, BDOC consists of a broad range of organic matter characteristics with respect to molecular weight. In AOC, low molecular weight organic matter and biopolymers fraction was reduced by 11 and 6%, respectively. It confirmed that biodegradation by microorganisms as the main removal mechanism in AOC, while BDOC has biodegradation by microorganism as well as the sorption effects from the sand. $O_3$ and $O_3+H_2O_2$ were compared with respect to biological stability and dissolved organic matter characteristics. BDOC and AOC were determined to be about 1.9 times for $O_3$ and about 1.4 times for $O_3+H_2O_2$. It was confirmed that $O_3$ enhanced the biodegradability by increasing LMW dissolved organic matter.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.155-163
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• 2008

.A simple and reproducible method for the rapid extraction and determination of trace amounts of copper(II) ions using mesoporous organo-silicas mesoporous silica and atomic absorption spectrometry is presented. Common coexisting ions did not interfere with the separation and determination. The preconcentration factor was 100 (1 ml elution volume) for a 100 ml sample volume. The limit of detection of the proposed method is 1.0 ng ml-1. The maximum sorption capacity of sorbent under optimum conditions has been found to be 5mg of copper per gram of sorbent. The relative standard deviation under optimum conditions was 2.8% (n=10). Accuracy and application of the method was estimated by using test samples of natural and synthetic water spiked with different amounts of copper(II) ion.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.189-193
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• 2020

In this study, electrokinetic remediation equipment was used to remove cesium (Cs) from clay soil and waste solution was treated with sorption process. The influence of electrokinetic process on the removal of Cs was evaluated under the condition of applied electric voltage of 15.0-20.0 V. In addition to monitoring the Cs removal, electrical current and temperature of the electrolyte during experiment were investigated. The removal efficiency of Cs from soil by electrokinetic method was more than 90%. After electrokinetic remediation, Cs was selectively separated from soil waste solution using sorbents. Various adsorption agents such as potassium nickel hexacyanoferrate (KNiHCF), Prussian blue, sodium tetraphenylborate (NaTPB), and zeolite were compared and KNiHCF showed the highest Cs removal efficiency. The Cs adsorption on KNiHCF reached equilibrium in 30 min. The maximum adsorption capacity was 120.4 mg/g at 0.1 g/L of adsorbent dosage. These results demonstrated that our proposed process combined electrokinetic remediation of soil and waste solution treatment with metal ferrocyanide can be a promising technique to decontaminate Cs-contaminated fine soil.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.307-312
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• 2010

Poly (ether sulfone)s with Bisphenol-TP and Bisphenol-AF were prepared with Bisphenol-TP <4,4-dihydroxy tetraphenyl methane>, 4-Fluorophenyl sulfone, and Bisphenol-AF <4,4-(hexafluoroisopropylidene) diphenol> using Potassium carbonate in Sulfolane at $210^{\circ}C$. Sulfonated PBTP-AF were obtained by reaction of Chlorosulfuric acid with copolymers. A series of copolymers were studied by $^1H$-NMR spectroscopy, Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC), and Thermo Gravimetric Analysis (TGA). Sorption experiments were conducted to observe the interaction of polymers with water and methanol.

• Journal of Korea Soil Environment Society
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.65-73
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• 2000

Surfactants have been extensively considered for decontamination of the subsurface polluted with hydrophobic organic compounds. In order to investigate the effect of molecular structures on the solubilization of hydrophobic organic compounds, solubility enhancement of two PAHs in solutions of three different surfactants-conventional, dianionic, and gemini. The batch experimental results showed that the gemini was the most effective and the dianionic was the least, indicating that organic carbon content of the surfactants was the major factor which determines the sorption capacity of surfactant aggregates in water, unlike some of the previous reports.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.846-853
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• 2016

We displayed four types of Solanum nigrum metallothionein (SMT) for the first time on the surface of Saccharomyces cerevisiae using an α-agglutinin-based display system. The SMT genes were amplified by RT-PCR. The plasmid pYES2 was used to construct the expression vector. Transformed yeast strains were confirmed by PCR amplification and custom sequencing. Surface-expressed metallothioneins were indirectly indicated by the enhanced cadmium sorption capacity. Flame atomic absorption spectrophotometry was used to examine the concentration of Cd²⁺ in this study. The transformed yeast strains showed much higher resistance ability to Cd²⁺ compared with the control. Strikingly, their Cd²⁺ accumulation was almost twice as much as that of the wild-type yeast cells. Furthermore, surface-engineered yeast strains could effectively adsorb ultra-trace cadmium and accumulate Cd²⁺ under a wide range of pH levels, from 3 to 7, without disturbing the Cu²⁺ and Hg²⁺. Four types of surfaceengineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains were constructed and they could be used to purify Cd²⁺-contaminated water and adsorb ultra-trace cadmium effectively. The surface-engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains would be useful tools for the bioremediation and biosorption of environmental cadmium contaminants.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.107-113
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• 2014

Small sized manganese dioxide particles are immobilized onto the surface of sand by the wet impregnation process. The surface morphology of the solid, i.e., immobilized manganese dioxide natural sand (IMNS) is performed by taking scanning electron microscope images and characterized by the X-ray diffraction data. The specific surface area of the solid is obtained, which shows a significant increase in the specific surface area obtained by the immobilization of manganese dioxide. The $pH_{PZC}$ (point of zero charge) is found to be 6.28. Further, the IMNS is assessed in the removal of As(III) and As(V) pollutants from aqueous solutions under the batch and column operations. Batch reactor experiments are conducted for various physicochemical parametric studies, viz. the effect of sorptive pH (pH 2.0-10.0), concentration (1.0-25.0 mg/L), and background electrolyte concentrations (0.0001-0.1 mol/L $NaNO_3$). Further, column experiments are conducted to obtain the efficiency of IMNS under dynamic conditions. The breakthrough data obtained by the column experiments are employed in non-linear fitting to the Thomas equation, so as to estimate the loading capacity of the column for As(III) and As(V).