• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.168-176
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• 2017

HNS accidents involve large-scale fires and explosions, causing numerous human casualties and extreme environmental pollution in the surrounding area. The widespread diffusion of effects should be prevented through rapid decision making. In this study, a high-quality, standardized, and digitized HNS accident databases has been generated based on the HNS standard code proposed. Furthermore, the HNS Accident Tracking System (HATS) was applied and implemented to allow for systematic integration management and sharing. In addition, statistical analysis was performed on 76 cases of domestic HNS accident data collected over 23 years using HATS. In Korea, an average of 3.3 HNS accidents occurred each year and major HNS accident factors were Springs (41 %), Aprons (51 %), Chemical Carriers (49 %), Crew's Fault (45 %) and Xylenes (12 %). (The number in parentheses is the percentage of HNS accident factors for each HNS accident classification)

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.32-41
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• 2011

By using a newly developed Korean risk-based corrective action (K-RBCA) software (K-RBCA) and the RBCA Tool Kit, risk assessment was performed on a site that was contaminated with aromatic hydrocarbons and heavy metals. Eight chemicals including benzene, ethylbenzene, xylenes, naphthalene, benz(a) anthracene, benzo(b) fluoranthene, benzo(a) pyrene, and arsenic that exceeded the US EPA Soil Screening Level were chosen as the target pollutants. A conceptual site model was constructed based on the site-specific effective exposure pathways. According to the RBCA Tool Kit the carcinogenic risk of arsenic was larger than $10^{-6}$, which is the generally acceptable carcinogenic risk level. The K-RBCA estimated the same level of carcinogenic risk for arsenic. With the RBCA Tool Kit, the carcinogenic risk of benzo(a) pyrene was estimated to be about $1.3{\times}10^{-6}$. However, with the K-RBCA benzo(a) pyrene did not exhibit any risk. The inconsistency between the softwares was attributed to the different fundamental settings (i.e., medium division) between the two softwares. While the K-RBCA divides medium into surface soil, subsurface soil, and groundwater, the RBCA Tool Kit divides medium into only soil and groundwater. These differences lead to the different exposure pathways used by the two softwares. The K-RBCA considers the exposure pathways in surface soil and subsurface soil separately to estimate risk, however, the RBCA Tool Kit considers the surface soil and subsurface soil as one and uses the integrated exposure pathways to estimate risk. Thus the resulting risk is higher when the RBCA Tool Kit is used than when the K-RBCA is used. The results from this study show that there is no significant difference in the risks estimated by the two softwares, thus, it is reasonable to use the K-RBCA we developed in risk assessment of soil and groundwater. In addition, the present study demonstrates that the assessor should be familiar with the characteristics of a contaminated site and the assumptions used by a risk assessment software when carrying out risk assessment.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.496-513
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• 2004

This study was carried out to evaluate the performance of sampling and analytical methodology used for the measurement of toxic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the ambient air. VOCs were determined by the adsorbent tube sampling and automatic thermal desorption coupled with GC/MSD analysis. Target analytes were 33 compounds including major aromatic compounds such as BTEX, and halogenated compounds. The methodology was investigated with a wide range of different adsorbents which are commercially available and have been frequently adopted for the VOC measurement. A total of 10 adsorbents were tested in this study: 6 carbon-based adsorbents such as Carbotrap, Carbopack B, Carbosieve S-III, Carboxen 1000, Carbotrap C, Activated Charcoal; and 4 polymer-based adsorbents including Tenax, Porapak Q, Chromosorb 102, and Chromosorb 106. The sampling performance was evaluated with respect to the sampling capacity of VOCs with single-adsorbent and multiple-adsorbents methods for standard samples and field samples. As a result, the best adsorbents for single-adsorbent method in the sampling of toxic organic compounds (including benzene, toluene, xylenes etc.) appeared to be Carbotrap, Carbopack B and Tenax TA. On the other hand, Chromosorb 102, Chromosorb 106 and Porapak Q were found to be unsuitable adsorbents for VOC measurement based on thermal desorption method. Multi-adsorbent packings were evaluated with 4 carbon-based adsorbents, which classified by 3 combination sets of double adsorbents and 2 combination sets of triple adsorbents. The results indicated that the most suitable combination for toixc VOC measurements is Carbotrap C with Carbotrap. Multi-sorbents tubes packed with a strong adsorbent such as Carbosieve S-III or Carboxen 1000 were found to be relatively unsuitable for several compounds, not only owing to the effect of migration of adsorbed compounds from weaker adsorbent to stronger adsorbent, but to hydrophobic nature of the adsorbents. Therefore, it should be addressed that selection of a proper adsorbent (or combination of multi sorbents) is extremely important to obtain reliable data for the concentrations of toxic VOCs in indoor and outdoor environments.