• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.16-24
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• 2014

To test the potential effects of extracellular electron shuttles (EES) on the rate and extent of heavy metal release from contaminated soils during microbial iron reduction, we created anaerobic batch systems with anthraquinone-2,6-disulfonate (AQDS) as a surrogate of EES, and with contaminated soils as mixed iron (hydr)oxides and microbial sources. Two types of soils were tested: Zn-contaminated soil A and As/Pb-contaminated soil B. In soil A, the rate of iron reduction was fastest in the presence of AQDS and > 3500 mg/L of total Fe(II) was produced within 2 d. This suggests that indigenous microorganisms can utilize AQDS as EES to stimulate iron reduction. In the incubations with soil B, the rate and extent of iron reduction did not increase in the presence of AQDS likely because of the low pH (< 5.5). In addition, less than 2000 mg/L of total Fe(II) was produced in soil B within 52 d suggesting that iron reduction by subsurface microorganisms in soil B was not as effective as that in soil A. Relatively high amount of As (~500 mg/L) was released to the aqueous phase during microbial iron reduction in soil B. The release of As might be due to the reduction of As-associated iron (hydr)oxides and/or direct enzymatic reduction of As(V) to As(III) by As-reducing microorganisms. However, given that Pb in liquid phase was < 0.3 mg/L for the entire experiment, the microbial reduction As(V) to As(III) by As-reducing microorganisms has most likely occurred in this system. This study suggests that heavy metal release from contaminated soils can be strongly controlled by subsurface microorganisms, soil pH, presence of EES, and/or nature of heavy metals.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.260-267
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• 2015

BACKGROUND: The current study was conducted to examine the species specific accumulation of Cd and Pb in 11 crop species (Soybean, Sesame, Corn, Polished rice, Carrot, Potato, Garlic, Spring onion, Chinese leek, Red pepper, Eggplant), through cultivating them under the same condition with metal contaminated soils.METHODS AND RESULTS: Eleven crop species were cultivated in three different soils contaminated with Cd and Pb and harvested. Edible parts of each crop was pretreated and analyzed to determine Cd and Pb concentrations, and subsequently bioconcentration factors (BCFs) were calculated. In general, the crops of which seeds are used as food showed high concentrations of both Cd and Pb. For instance, Cd concentrations in crops cultivated in Soil A was in the order of soybean (0.432 mg kg^-1) > sesame (0.385) > polished rice (0.176) > carrot (0.116) > corn (0.060) > red pepper > (0.047) > potato (0.044) > egg plant (0.025) > garlic (0.023) > spring onion (0.016) > Chinese leek (0.011). BCFs showed the same order.CONCLUSION: From this study, it can be conclude that seeds plants should not be cultivated in Cd and Pb contaminated soils to secure food safety from metal contaminated soils.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.316-319
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• 2011

Biopiles which offer the potential for cost-effective treatment of contaminated soils are above-ground, engineered systems that use oxygen to stimulate the growth and reproduction of aerobic bacteria for degradation of the petroleum constituents adsorbed to soil in excavated soils. This technology involves heaping contaminated soils into piles and stimulating aerobic microbial activity within the soils through the aeration and/or addition of minerals, nutrients, and moisture. Inside the biopile, microbially mediated reactions by blowing or extracting air through the pipes can enhance degradation of the organic contaminants. The influence of a aeration system on the biopile performance was investigated. Air pressure made to compare the efficiency of suction in the pipes showed that there were slightly significant difference between the two piles in the total amount of TPH biodegradation. The normalised degradation rate was, however, considerably higher in the aeration system than in the normal system without aeration, suggesting that the vertical venting method may have improved the efficiency of the biological reactions in the pile.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.33 no.9
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• pp.670-676
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• 2011

Artificially metal-contaminated soils have been widely used for lab-scale soil washing and soil toxicity experiments. The artificial soil contamination methods consist of 1) first equilibrating soils with heavy metal solution, 2) filtrating or centrifuging soils from the mixture and 3) finally drying the soils. However, some of those artificially contaminated soil experiments have not clearly shown that the soils were thoroughly rinsed with water prior to conducting experiments. This study investigated the amount of heavy metal release from the artificially metal-contaminated soil by pre-water-rinsing. Three different artificially metal-contaminated soil preparation methods were first evaluated with Cd and Pb concentrations of soil. Then, this study investigated the effect of pre-water-rinsing on the Cd and Pb concentration of the artificially contaminated soil. Heavy metal concentrations of the soil produced by equilibrating and drying the metal solution-soil were significantly reduced by pre-water-rinsing. The results of the study implied that experimental results would be significantly distorted when the artificially heavy metal-contaminated soils were not thoroughly water-rinsed prior to conducting experiments. Therefore, the initial heavy metal concentration of the artificially contaminated soil should be determined after thoroughly rinsing the soil that was previously obtained through the adsorption and dry stages.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.9-19
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• 2021

This study evaluated the feasibility of combined use of physical separation and soil washing to remediate heavy metals (Pb and Cu) contaminated soil in a military shooting range. The soils were classified into two types based on the level of heavy metal concentrations: a higher contaminated soil (HCS) with Pb and Cu concentrations of 6,243 mg/kg and 407 mg/kg, respectively, and a lower contaminated soil (LCS) with their concentrations of 1,658 mg/kg and 232 mg/kg. Pb level in both soils exceeded the regulatory limit (700 mg/kg), and its concentration generally increased with decreasing soil particle size. However, in some cases, Pb concentrations increased with increasing soil particle size, presumably due to the presence of residues of bullets in the soil matrix. As a pretreatment step, a shaking table was used for physical separation of soil to remove bullet residues while fractionating the contaminated soils into different sizes. The most effective separation and fractionation were achieved at vibration velocity of 296 rpm/min, the table slope of 7.0°, and the separating water flow rate of 23 L/min. The efficiency of ensuing soil washing process for LCS was maximized by using 0.5% HCl with the soil:washing solution mixing ratio of 1:3 for 1 hr treatment. On the contrary, HCS was most effectively remediated by using 1.0% HCl with the same soil:solution mixing ratio for 3 hr. This work demonstrated that the combined use of physical separation and soil washing could be a viable option to remediate soils highly contaminated with heavy metals.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.252-254
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• 2004

In the past several years phytoremediation, defined as the use of plants for removing contaminants from media such as soils or water, has attracted a great deal of interest as a potentially useful remediation technology. In this study, we have attempted to asses the effectiveness of phytoremeidation of disel contaminate soils using hybrid poplar species. 3 poplar species had removed disel from soil effectively and toxic effect was also observed over 2500mg/kg disel contaminated soil, which indicating reducing disel removal.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2009.09a
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• pp.1372-1377
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• 2009

For the remediation of the subsurface contaminated by nonaqueous phase liquids(NAPLs), it is important to characterize the NAPL zone properly. Conventional characterization methods provide data at discrete points. To overcome the weak points of conventional characterization methods, the partitioning tracer method has been developed and studied. The average saturation of NAPL($S_n$), which is the representative and continuous saturation value within contaminated site, can be calculated by comparing the transport of the partitioning tracers to that of the conservative tracer in the partitioning tracer method. In this study, the application of the partitioning tracer method in heterogeneous media was investigated. To represent the heterogeneous condition of subsurface, a two-dimensional soil box was divided into four layers and each layer contained different sized soils. Soils in the soil box were contaminated by the mixture of kerosene and diesel, and partitioning tracer tests were conducted before and after the contamination using methanol as conservative tracer and 4-methyl-2-pentanol, 2-ethyl-1-butanol, and hexanol as partitioning tracers. The response curves of partitioning tracers from contaminated soils were separated and retarded in comparison with those from non-contaminated soils. The contamination of soils by NAPLs, therefore, can be detected by partitioning tracer method considering these retardations of tracers. From our experiment condition, the average saturation of NAPLs calculated by partitioning tracer method using the methanol as conservative tracer and hexanol as partitioning tracer showed the highest accuracy, though all results were underestimated. Further studies, therefore, were needed for improving the accuracy using the partitioning tracer test in heterogeneous media.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.1-6
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• 2020

Recently, ex-situ remediation technologies has been emerging to clean up contaminated soils mainly because the in-situ techniques have limited applicability and technical difficulties in relatively small contaminated sites. Accordingly, implementation of off-site treatment and disposal have been continuously increased in soil remediation and restoration projects in Korea. However, in many cases, reclaimed soil is still not properly recycled or reused. Therefore, there is an urgent need to document the current status of soil management practices in soil remediation projects in the nation. This study presents a survey of soil contamination status and remedial approaches in Korea based on soil cleanup projects completed in 2015 - 2019, and proposes the possible options of the recycling or reusing the reclaimed soils under compliance with related regulations. The results of the soil survey showed soil contamination was most severe in gas stations, industrial facilities, and military areas. The major types of pollution were related to the petroleum-contaminated site (TPH and BTEX) with 77.0% occurrence in all the contaminated sites. The reclaimed soils were mostly reused as a ground filling-up soils in industrial facilities (60.0%) and warehouses (37.0%).

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.62-69
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• 2018

In the present study, long-term heavy metals (HMs) contaminated soil samples from a well-known Pb/Zn smelting area in the southwest of China were collected, and physicochemical and biological characteristics of these samples were evaluated. Soil samples contained different concentrations of HMs, namely Pb, Zn, Cu, and Cd. Enzyme activity analyses combined with microcalorimetric analysis were used for soil microbial activity evaluation. Results showed that two soil samples, containing almost the highest concentrations of HMs, also shared the greatest microbial activities. Based on correlation coefficient analysis, high microbial activity in heavily HMs contaminated soil might be due to the high contents of soil organic matter and available phosphorus in these samples. High-throughput sequencing technique was used for microbial community structure analysis. High abundance of genera Sphingomonas and Thiobacillus were also observed in these two heavily contaminated soils, suggesting that bacteria belonging to these two genera might be further isolated from these contaminated soils and applied for future studies of HMs remediation. Results of present study would contribute to the evaluation of microbial communities and isolation of microbial resources to remediate HMs pollution.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2005.03a
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• pp.1400-1407
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• 2005

There are a number of approaches to in situ remediation that are used at contaminated sites for removing contaminants from the contaminated zone without excavating the soil. These include soil flushing, dual phase extraction, and soil vapor extraction. Of these techniques, soil flushing is the focus of the investigation in this paper. The concept of using prefabricated vertical drains(PVDs) for remediation of contaminated sites with fine-grained soils is examined. The PVD system is used to shorten the drainage path or the groundwater flow and promote subsurface liquid movement expediting the soil flushing process. The use of PVDs in the current state of practice has been limited to soil improvement. The use of PVDs under vacuum conditions is investigated using sample soil consisting of silty sand.