• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.607-617
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• 2020

Human bio-monitoring (HBM) data is a very important resource for tracking total exposure and concentrations of a parent chemical or its metabolites in human biomarkers. However, until now, it was difficult to execute the integration of different types of HBM data due to incompatibility problems caused by gaps in study design, chemical description and coding system between different sources in Korea. In this study, we presented a standardized code system and HBM knowledge model (KM) based on relational database modeling methodology. For this purpose, we used 11 raw datasets collected from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) between 2006 and 2018. We then constructed the HBM database (DB) using a total of 205,491 concentration-related data points for 18,870 participants and 86 chemicals. In addition, we developed a summary report-type statistical analysis program to verify the inputted HBM datasets. This study will contribute to promoting the sustainable creation and versatile utilization of big-data for HBM results at the MFDS.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF PACKAGING SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.193-201
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• 2021

Patents for postharvest technology of fresh fruits, vegetables and mushrooms fluctuated in their filing number until the 2000s, but then there has been a steady increase in the 2010s, indicating that the technology has high growth potential in the international agricultural market. Using 551 valid patents for fresh fruits and 337 for fresh vegetables of 5 countries, patent trend of postharvest technology was analyzed in this study with two categorized technologies as packaging and storage. In Korea, patents from national research institutes such as the Korea Food Research Institute and Korea (Rural Development Administration) are dominated, and a number of patents for the postharvest storage of fresh vegetables by Mitsui Chemicals, a Japanese chemical company, have been registered. Agrofresh, a multinational company in the USA, holds a number of patents for postharvest storage of fresh fruit not only in its own country, but also in Japan and Europe. Postharvest technology of fresh fruits and vegetables was found to has a number of patents, mainly from national research institutes and multinational corporations, and this suggests that R&D and commercialization of the technologies are actively taking place.

• Clean Technology
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.9-17
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• 2022

Electrochemical carbon dioxide (CO₂) reduction technology, one of the promising solutions for climate change, can convert CO₂, a representative greenhouse gas (GHG), into valuable base chemicals using electric energy. In particular, carbon monoxide (CO), among various candidate products, is attracting much attention from both academia and industry because of its high Faraday efficiency, promising economic feasibility, and relatively large market size. Although numerous previous studies have recently analyzed the GHG reduction potential of this technology, the assumptions made and inventory data used are neither consistent nor transparent. In this study, a comparative life cycle assessment was carried out to analyze the potential for reducing GHG emissions in the electrochemical CO production process in a more transparent way. By defining three different system boundaries, the global warming impact was compared with that of a fossil fuel-based CO production process. The results confirmed that the emission factor of electric energy supplied to CO₂-electrolyzers should be much lower than that of the current national power generation sector in order to mitigate GHG emissions by replacing conventional CO production with electrochemical CO production. Also, it is important to disclose transparently inventory data of the conventional CO production process for a more reliable analysis of GHG reduction potential.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF PACKAGING SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.149-158
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• 2021

Advances in food packaging play an important role in keeping food manufacturing and food supply safe. Food packaging facilitates the storage, handling, transportation and preservation of food, and also contributes to the minimization of food waste. On the other hand, food packaging materials have high production volumes, short usage times, and accelerate the occurrence of environmental problems related to waste. The circular economy has already been introduced to pursue sustainability through resource conservation and recycling, and to reduce waste and carbon emissions. By activating an eco-friendly economic system that minimizes resource depletion and environmental pollution, reducing, reusing, recycling and redesigning the goals of the circular economy will reduce the impact of food packaging on the environment. This review focused on the safety aspects of recycled food packaging as recycling is currently considered an important means of packaging waste management. Assessing the safety of recycled packaging is very important because recycling can increase the levels of potentially hazardous chemicals in packaging and in the food after they are migrated. Various food packaging materials such as plastic, paper and cardboard, aluminum, steel, and multi-material multi-layers packaging are commonly used, but only the recycling safety of plastic food packaging materials, which is the most used and has a significant increase in post-use problem, is discussed in this review.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.66-74
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• 2022

Background: The health effects of particulate matter (PM_2.5) bonded with various harmful chemicals differ based on their composition, so investigating and managing their concentrations and composition is vital for long-term management. As industrial complexes emit considerable quantities of pollutants, higher PM_2.5 concentrations and chemical component effects are expected than in other places. Objectives: We investigated the concentration distribution ratios of PM_2.5 chemical components to provide basic data to inform future major emissions control and PM_2.5 reduction measures in industrial complexes. Methods: We monitored five sites near the Ansan and Siheung industrial complexes from August 2020 to July 2021. Samples were collected and analyzed twice per week in spring/winter and once per week in summer/autumn according to the National Institute of Environmental Research in the Ministry of Environments' Air Pollution Monitoring Network Installation and Operation Guidelines. We investigated and compared composition ratios of 29 ions, carbon, and elemental components in PM_2.5. Results: The analysis of PM_2.5 components at the five sites revealed that ion components accounted for the greatest total mass at approximately 50% while carbon components and elemental components contributed 23~28% and 8~10%, respectively. Among the ionic components, NO₃^- occupies the greatest proportion. OC occupies the greatest proportion of the carbon components and sulphur occupies the greatest proportion of elemental components. Conclusions: This study investigated the concentration distribution ratios of PM_2.5 chemical components in industrial complexes. We believe these results provide basic chemical component concentration ratio data for establishing future air management policies and plans for the Ansan and Siheung industrial complexes.

• Journal of Practical Agriculture & Fisheries Research
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.49-57
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• 2021

As the world marks the adoption of the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change, a promising movement for carbon neutrality is taking shape. This agreement would be needed to build a truly global coalition for carbon neutrality by 2050. Greenhouse gas(GHGs) emissions from agriculture come from livestock such as cows, agricultural soils and rice production has been reported by 10% in 2019. Rice cultivation would be reduced a GHGs and thus this research has conducted to minimize the emission of greenhouse gas with the mulching methodology using a biodegradable film in dry hill seeded rice and to conserve the environment through a cultural and ecological weed control instead of chemicals. We have developed the 5^th mulching dry hill seeder with the biodegradable film to determine the possibility of stable rice cultivation. There were so many difficulties and constraints in the field operations such as film mulching, hill seeding and effective weed control. The mulching dry hill seeder was so good performance in the 5^th trial but the biodegradable film tested was so faster in terms of biodegradation before the heading stage of the rice plant and thus there was not highly effective weed control which is ongoing research with a good performance since 2020.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.60 no.2
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• pp.193-201
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• 2022

5-HMF(5-Hydroxymethylfurfural) and LA(levulinic acid) derived from biomass are green platform chemicals, which have a wide of potential applications as biofules and biochemicals. In this study, the kinetics of LA formation from glucose decomposition with various concentration of sulfuric acid at different temperature was investigated. The experiments were performed in a broad temperature (140-200 ℃), using H₂SO₄ (1-3 wt%) as the catalyst. Glucose solution was made by dissolving 1 g of glucose in 10 ml of H₂SO₄ solution. The reactions rates increased with temperature and the activation energy showed a similar tendency to previous reported values. Reaction time for maximum concentration of 5-HMF decreased as the temperature increased. Furthermore, the decomposition of 5-HMF was fast as the acid concentration increased. Reaction time to reach maximum concentration of levulinic acid was reduced as the acid concentration increased. Continuing to raise the temperature decreased the maximum concentration of levulinic acid and increased the amount of humins. On the basis of results, kinetic parameters help to understand mechanism of LA and 5-HMF. In addition, this study provides useful information to achieve high concentration of LA and 5-HMF from biomass.

• Journal of Practical Agriculture & Fisheries Research
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.87-97
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• 2021

To investigate the current pest management status in Korea, a survey was conducted from 151 students and graduates in the Korea National College of Agriculture and Fisheries (KNCAF) by on-line. The questionnaire consists of two divisions, basic questions and pest control questions. The basic questions were including the respondent's age, academic status, cultivating crops and cultivating area. The pest control questions were including pest control methods, pesticide selection rationale, and pest forecasting methods. As a summary of basic questions, the respondents in their 20s accounted for 91.2%. Moreover, 34.5% of the respondents had over 3 hectares of cultivating area. The cultivating methods were differed by cultivating crops. As a summary of pest control questions, major control methods were using the conventional chemicals (>66%). To understand the pesticide selection rationale, farmers/respondents made their own decisions based on existing control techniques (30%) or depended on the decisions of pesticide vendors (29%). As for the pest forecasting method, it was mainly conducted by the Rural Development Administration affiliated organization (29%) and the National Crop Pest Management System (27%). Regarding the reliability of the pest diagnosis and pesticide prescription of pesticide vendors, 97% of the respondents marked above average. However, there was no choice on strong reliability. Interestingly, 79% of the respondents agreed to train experts for pest diagnosis and pesticide prescription with high necessity and, in particular, 47% of respondents were very strongly supported. These results suggest that the farmers might be need more qualified experts in pest diagnosis and pesticide prescriptions. Taken together, these survey results would provide important information to understand the current status of pest management by farmers' point of view and useful to set the direction of pest control.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.306-313
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• 2022

Purpose: The purpose of this study is suggested to improve upon current existing methods of ammonia chemical accident prevention and damage reduction. Method: Ammonia is one of the most common toxic substances that causes frequent chemical accidents. And it was selected as leakage materials according to statistics on chemical accident. Based on actual cases of chemical accidents, CARIS modeling was used to compare the damage impact range of Ammonia and HCl and Cl. Also, find out problems with the current systems. Result: As a result of find out the range of accident influence that spreads to the surroundings when an ammonia chemical accident, it was longer than the range of influence of hydrochloric acid and shorter than that of chlorine. In addition, it was found that when chemical accident by ammonia, hydrochloric acid, or chlorine, there are apartments and schools, which can have an effect. Conclusion: It is decided that it is necessary to determine whether or not chemical accident prevention management plans and statistical investigations are submitted for workplaces dealing with ammonia, and detailed guidelines and reviews are necessary. In addition, it is judged that it is necessary to establish a DB for ammonia handling plants, and it is considered that information sharing and joint inspection among related organizations should be pursued.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.195-205
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• 2022

Background: The biggest concern when using household chemical products is the health risk from inhalation exposure. Objectives: The purpose of this paper was to provide information necessary for estimating inhalation exposure factors in several countries/organizations and to present some examples. Methods: We attempted to use PRISMA-ScR for a systematic review, but no major reports were found. We used the Google search function instead to find 'exposure factor handbook'. As for the results, inhalation exposure factors from South Korea, the United States, Canada, the EU, Australia, Japan, and China were compared. Results: The basic concept and origin of exposure factors was the US Environmental Protection Agency's Exposure Factor Handbook. Its latest version is 2011, but several chapters have been updated in 2017, 2018, and 2019. South Korea's Exposure Factor Handbook was updated in 2019, more recently than those of other countries, and was systematically investigated. In South Korea, the average daily respiratory rate is 14.62 m³/day for adults and 12.73 m³/day for children. It is difficult to compare breathing rate by country because each country divides age groups differently and uses different methods to estimate it. Information on household chemical products, space used, and ventilation rate are in the exposure factor handbook in some countries and not in others. It is not in the handbook in South Korea, but in the notice from the NIER (National Institute of Environmental Research), a sub-regulation of the Chemical Product Safety Act. Conclusions: The exposure factors registered in South Korea's exposure factor handbook have been systematically studied and reflect the most recent data. When using data not in the relevant handbook, data from other countries might be applied, but it should be determined whether the nature and quality of the original data have been managed.