• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 1997.06a
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• pp.207-231
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• 1997

The use household water purifier is continuously increasing due to the distrust of the piped, rap water, which may be caused by the deterioration of water quality and water supply facilities in Korea. The water purifier distributing in the domestic market is the membrane type that composes of membrane as a basic filter, sediment filter as a prefilter and activated carbon filter instead of one purifying water system. The membrane type using as a water cleaning system is mainly the method of micro filtration(NIF) as well as ultra filtration(UF) and reverse osmosis(RO). The types of MF and UF are using to remove suspended solids and virus, and RO is using to remove ionic compound in chemical organic compounds. At the beginning the household water purifier was imported as end-product or assembled by only importing module from small businesses in Korea. Therefore, people was hard to confide in the product quality because the sales policy and management of water purifier by small business were not effectively organized. However, the defects of water purifier having up to now ate improving by the efforts of special branches of water purifier and large enterprises, and new great products are developing and producing. To develop the best quality product of water purifier in Korea, it should be considered seasonal water characteristrics rather than any other condition. For example, the water purifier can be affected by the water temperature change, increase of suspended solids in the rainy season and inflow of raw water having concentration in a dry season. The subject we have to investigate in the future is to develop the water purifying system adaptable in Korea which can treat the water quality using close analyses of local and seasonal water characteristics.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.208-218
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• 2023

Photocatalysts are advanced materials which accelerate the photoreaction by providing ordinary reactions with other pathways. The catalysts have various advantages, such as low-cost, low operating temperature and pressure, and long-term use. They are applied to environmental and energy field, including the air and water purification, water splitting for hydrogen production, sterilization and self-cleaning surfaces. However, commercial photocatalysts only absorb ultraviolet light between 100 and 400 nm of wavelength which comprises only 5% in sunlight due to the wide band gap. In addition, rapid recombination of electron-hole pairs reduces the photocatalytic performance. Recently, studies on blackening photocatalysts by laser, thermal, and plasma treatments have been conducted to enhance the absorption of visible light and photocatalytic activity. The disordered structures could yield mid-gap states and vacancies could cause charge carrier trapping. Herein, liquid phase plasma (LPP) is adopted to synthesize Ag-doped black ZnO for the utilization of visible-light. The physical and chemical characteristics of the synthesized photocatalysts are analyzed by SEM/EDS, XRD, XPS and the optical properties of them are investigated using UV/Vis DRS and PL analyses. Lastly, the photocatalytic activity was evaluated using methylene blue as a pollutant.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.271-279
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• 2023

Fouling is an inevitable problem in membrane water treatment plant. It can be measured by trans-membrane pressure (TMP) in the constant flux operation, and chemical cleaning is carried out when TMP reaches a critical value. An early fouilng alarm is defined as warning the critical TMP value appearance in advance. The alarming method was developed using one of machine learning algorithms, decision tree, and applied to a ceramic microfiltration (MF) pilot plant. First, the decision tree model that classifies the normal/abnormal state of the filtration cycle of the ceramic MF pilot plant was developed and it was then used to make the early fouling alarm method. The accuracy of the classification model was up to 96.2% and the time for the early warning was when abnormal cycles occurred three times in a row. The early fouling alram can expect reaching a limit TMP in advance (e.g., 15-174 hours). By adopting TMP increasing rate and backwash efficiency as machine learning variables, the model accuracy and the reliability of the early fouling alarm method were increased, respectively.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.257-264
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• 2006

This study investigated the effects of hybrid process(chemical coagulation, Fenton oxidation and ceramic UF(ultrafiltration)) on COD and color removals of commercial reactive dyestuffs. In the case of chemical coagulation, the optimal concentrations of $Fe^{3+}$ coagulant for COD and color removals of RB49(reactive blue 49) and RY84(reactive yellow 84) were determined according to the different coagulant dose at the optimal pH. They were 2.78 mM(pH 7) in RB49 and 1.85 mM(pH 6) in RY84, respectively. In the case of Fenton oxidation, the optimal concentrations of $Fe^{3+}\;and\;H_2O_2$ were obtained. Optimal $[Fe^{2+}]:[H_2O_2]$ molar ratio of COD and color removals of RB49 and RY84 were 4.41:5.73 mM and 1.15:0.81 mM, respectively. In the case of ceramic UF, the flux and rejection of supernatant after Fenton oxidation were investigated. After ceramic UF for 9 hr, the average flux of RB49 and RY84 solutions were $53.4L/m^2hr\;and\;67.4L/m^2hr$ at 1 bar, respectively. In addition, the permeate flux increased and the average flux recovery were 98.5-99.9%(RB49) and 91.0-97.3%(RY84) according to adopting off-line cleaning(5% $H_2SO_4$). Finally, COD and color removals were 91.6-95.7% and 99.8% by hybrid process, respectively.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.155-163
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• 2017

Membrane filtration has become more popular in drinking water treatment recently, since the filtration can control not only particulate matters but also pathogenic microorganisms such as giardia and cryptosporidium very effectively. Pilot-scale ($120m^3/d$ of treatment capacity) and test-bed ($25,000m^3/d$ of treatment capacity) microfiltration experiments were conducted to find optimum operating mode and the critical flux. Optimum operating mode of pilot-test was assessed as inflow 1.0 min, filtration 36.5 min, air backwash 0.9 min, backwash 1.0 min and outflow 1.0 min with 50 LMH ($L/min{\cdot}m3^$) of critical flux. Critical Flux was calculated to be $50L/m^2-h$ (within TMP 0.5 bar) based on the increase formula of the transmembrane pressure difference according to the change of time at Flux 20, 40, 56 and 62 LMH in pilot operation. Chemical cleaning was first acid washed twice, and alkali washing was performed secondarily, and a recovery rate of 95% was obtained in the test-bed plant. The results of operating under these appropriate conditions are as follows. Turbidity of treated water were 0.028, 0.024, 0.026 and 0.028 NTU in spring, summer, autumn and winter time, respectively. Microfiltration has superior treatment capability and performance characteristics in removing suspended solids and colloidal materials, which are the main cause of turbidity and important carrier of metal elements, and it has shown great potential in being an economically substitute to traditional processes (sand filtration).

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.59 no.6
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• pp.690-695
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• 2005

Nitric acid is an oxidizing agent used in metal refining and cleaning, electroplating, and other industrial applications. Its accidental spillage generates oxides of nitrogen, including nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide ($NO_2$), which cause chemical pneumonitis when inhaled. The clinical presentation of a nitric acid inhalation injury depends on the duration and intensity of exposure. In mild cases, there may be no symptoms during the first few hours after exposure, or the typical symptoms of pulmonary edema can appear within 3-24 hours. However, in cases of prolonged exposure, progressive pulmonary edema develops instantaneously and patients may not survive for more than 24 hours. We report a case of a 44-year-old male who was presented with acute respiratory distress syndrome after nitric acid inhalation. He complained of cough and dyspnea of a sudden onset after inhaling nitric acid fumes at his workplace over a four-hour period. He required endotracheal intubation and mechanical ventilation due to fulminant respiratory failure. He was managed successfully with mechanical ventilation using positive end expiratory pressure and systemic corticosteroids, and recovered fully without any deterioration in his pulmonary function.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.30 no.12
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• pp.1273-1280
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• 2008

This study sought to establish the optimum operating condition for the recovery of caustic (NaOH) solution from mercerization in textile process. As main factors, the silt density index (SDI) evaluation of ceramic membrane for the application of nanofiltration/reverse osmosis (NF/RO) membrane, the recovery yield measurement of caustic solution for the application of polymeric membrane, the optimum condition of chemical cleaning for the membrane regeneration, the optimum removal condition of total organic carbon (TOC), turbidity, color, and the permeate flux of ceramic membrane/polymeric membrane combined process were investigated. As results, ceramic ultrafiltration (UF) in the first step and nanofiltration (NF) in the second step were found to be suitable for the removal of total suspended solid (TSS), residual organics, turbidity including color, and the recovery of caustic solution from caustic wastewater stream in mercerization process. When only the ceramic UF membrane was used, the rejection efficiency of both of TSS and turbidity was more than 99.0%, and the color and TOC were rejected about 74.7% and 49.2%, respectively. Meanwhile, the combined membrane precess of UF and NF membranes showed even more efficient removal abilities and thus more than 99.9% of TSS and turbidity, 87.7% of color, and 78.2% of TOC were removed. In particular, 91.3% of NaOH was successfully recovered with 83.7% of total volume in the combined membrane process. With this regard, a clean caustic solution was obtained in a high purity, which can be reused for mercerization process, expecting to offer economical benefits.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.35 no.12
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• pp.877-882
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• 2013

The application of ultrafiltration (UF) and microfiltration (MF) membranes has been increased for drinking water purification. The advantages of UF/MF membrane process compared to conventional treatment processes are stable operation under varying feed water quality, smaller construction area, and automatic operation. Most membrane treatment plants are designed with polymeric membranes. Recently, some studies suggested that the process of treating surface water with ceramic membranes is competitive to the application of polymeric membranes. Higher water flux, less frequent cleaning, and much longer lifetime are the advantages of ceramic membrane comparing to polymeric membrane. Therefore, this research focused on the application of ceramic MF membrane pilot plant at the slow sand filtration plant. The ceramic membrane pilot plant has three trains that used raw water and sand filtered water as a feed water, respectively. For optimizing the pilot plant process, the coagulation with PACl coagulant was used as a pretreatment of ceramic membrane process. In addition, CEB (Chemical Enhanced Backwash) process using $H_2SO_4$ and NaOCl was used for 1.5 days, respectively. The experimental results showed that applying the optimum coagulant dose before membrane filtration showed enhancing membrane fluxes for both raw water and sand filtered water. Also, when using raw water as a feed of membrane, minimum fouling rate was 2.173 kPa/cycle with 25 mg/L of PACl and when using sand filtered water, the minimum fouling rate was 0.301 kPa/cycle with 5 mg/L of PACl.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.730-738
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• 1992

Filtration characteristics according to membrane materials were studied In the ultrafiltration of anaerobic digestion broth as a post treatment method. A series of resistances for different membranes were quantitatively assessed on the basis of the resistance-in-series model. Flux behavior observed with the digestion broth was irrelevant to initial water permeabilities of each membrane. The fluoro polymer membrane showed the most significant improvement of flux with increase of cross-flow velocity, which suggests that the cake layer formed on this membrane is more weakly attached to the membrane surface than those on the other membranes. Flux reduction during longtime running was attrib-used to the polarization layer resistance ($R_p$) as well as the fouling layer resistance($R_f$). Continuous increase of $R_p$ may reflect the variation in the characteristics of cake layers, which could result from size, shape, and structure changes due to lysis and growth of biomass. Hydrophilic cellulosic membrane had a much lower fouling tendency than hydrophobic polysulfone membrane. The depressurization method induced a small increase in flux of $5-10L/m^2/h$. During washing and cleaning, filtrability of each membrane was rapidly recovered within 15 minutes until a stationary value was reached.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.13-18
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• 2003

The effect of ultrasonic decomposition was introduced to develop a pretreatment method for the analysis of potassium ion in human urine by potentiometry. N-(4’-benzo-15-crown-5)-anthracene-9-imine, which has a good selectivity coefficient for potassium against ammonium, was used as an ion-selective material for the determination of potassium in urine with relatively high concentration of $NH_4{^+}$. Protenis in urine be removed by 85.1% when the sample acidified with 1.0 M $HNO_3$ was preteated for 100 s by sonication. Potential response of the membrane electrode in the pretreated urine had a slope of 54.6(${\pm}0.2,\;n=5$) mV/decade over the linear range of log $[K^+]$=-5~-1(r=0.9997). When an oxidant, $H_2O_2$, was addwd to the urine sonicated with $HNO_3$, the deproteinization increased 10% more than that in case if only $HNO_3$ and then the maximum ratio of ca. 95% was obtained. Moreover, the Nernstian slope for $K^+$ added to the urinary sample increased to 56.7(${\pm}0.1,\;n=3$) mV/decade. When the calibration curves were measured, the slopes did not vary even after the electrode was successively used 20 times with ultrasonic cleaning. The results showed that an ultrasonic pretreatment method provides simplicity in use, reduced treatment time and improved potentiometric characteristics of the membrane as the method effectively removes ca. 95% of proteins in urine.