• Food Science and Biotechnology
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.564-568
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• 2008

The effects of sodium copper chlorophyllin (SCC) on bioaccessibility and uptake of mercury from fish were investigated using an in vitro digestion coupled with a Caco-2 cell. Fish along with SCC was subjected to a simulated in vitro digestion, which simulates both the gastric and small intestinal phase in vivo. Mercury bioaccessibility, the amount of mercury released from fish to aqueous phase following a digestion, was measured. Various amounts of SCC (0.1-25 mg) significantly reduced mercury bioaccessibility in a dose dependent manner by 49-89% compared to the negative control (fish without SCC) (p<0.05). Mercury bioaccessibility in varying molar ratios of mercury to positive control, 2,3-dimercapto-1-propane sulfonate (DMPS) was between 24 and 52%. Mercury uptake by Caco-2 cells from test media containing aqueous phase following in vitro digestion was measured after 6 hr incubation at $37^{\circ}C$. Cellular mercury uptake with increasing amount of SCC ranged from 0.352 to $0.052\;{\mu}g$ mercury/mg protein, while those in DMPS treatment were between 0.14 and $0.27\;{\mu}g$ mercury/mg protein. Our study suggests that SCC can reduce mercury absorption following fish consumption and may be efficient as a synthetic chelating agent for long term chronic mercury exposure in fish eating populations.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.156-161
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• 2012

Marine biomass is considered an important substrate for anaerobic digestion to recovery energy i.e. methane. Nevertheless, marine biomass has attracted little attention by researchers compared to terrestrial feedstock for anaerobic digestion. In this study, biochemical methane potential (BMP) test was used to evaluate generation of renewable energy from starfish. A cumulative biogas yield of $748{\pm}67mL\;g^{-1}VS^{-1}$ was obtained after 60 days of digestion. The cumulative methane yield of $486{\pm}28mL\;CH_4\;g^{-1}VS^{-1}$ was obtained after 60 days of digestion. The methane content of the biogas was approximately 70%. The calculated data applying the modified Gompertz equation for the cumulative $CH_4$ production showed good correlation with the experimental result obtained from this batch study. Since the result obtained from this study is comparable to results with other substrates, marine biomass can be co-digested with food waste or swine wastewater to produce $CH_4$ gas that will help to reduce the gap in global energy demand.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.131-138
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• 2009

Among rumen microbes, bacteria play important roles in the biological degradation of plant fiber due to their large biomass and high activity. To maximize the utilization of fiber components such as cellulose and hemicellulose by ruminant animals, the ecology and functions of rumen bacteria should be understood in detail. Recent genome sequencing analyses of representative fibrolytic bacterial species revealed that the number and variety of enzymes for plant fiber digestion clearly differ between Fibrobacter succinogenes and Ruminococcus flavefaciens. Therefore, the mechanism of plant fiber digestion is also thought to differ between these two species. Ecology of individual fibrolytic bacterial species has been investigated using pure cultures and electron microscopy. Recent advances in molecular biology techniques complement the disadvantages of conventional techniques and allow accurate evaluation of the ecology of specific bacteria in mixed culture, even in situ and in vivo. Molecular monitoring of fibrolytic bacterial species in the rumen indicated the predominance of F. succinogenes. Nutritive interactions between fibrolytic and non-fibrolytic bacteria are important in maintaining and promoting fibrolytic activity, mainly in terms of crossfeeding of metabolites. Recent 16S rDNA-based analyses suggest that presently recognized fibrolytic species such as F. succinogenes and two Ruminococcus species with fibrolytic activity may represent only a small proportion of the total fibrolytic population and that uncultured bacteria may be responsible for fiber digestion in the rumen. Therefore, characterization of these unidentified bacteria is important to fully understand the physiology and ecology of fiber digestion. To achieve this, a combination of conventional and modern techniques could be useful.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.33 no.10
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• pp.3233-3240
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• 2012

We demonstrated the combined applications of online protein digestion using trypsin immobilized enzyme reactor (IMER) and dual tandem mass spectrometry with collisionally activated dissociation (CAD) and electron transfer dissociation (ETD) for tryptic peptides eluted through the trypsin-IMER. For the trypsin-IMER, the organic and inorganic hybrid monolithic material was used. By employing the trypsin-IMER, the long digestion time could be saved with little or no sacrifice of the digestion efficiency, which was demonstrated for standard protein samples. For three model proteins (cytochrome c, carbonic anhydrase, and bovine serum albumin), the tryptic peptides digested by the IMER were analyzed using LC-MS/MS with the dual application of CAD and ETD. As previously shown by others, the dual application of CAD and ETD increased the sequence coverage in comparison with CAD application only. In particular, ETD was very useful for the analysis of highly-protontated peptide cations, e.g., ${\geq}3+$. The combination approach provided the advantages of both trypsin-IMER and CAD/ETD dual tandem mass spectrometry applications, which are rapid digestion (i.e., 10 min), good digestion efficiency, online coupling of trypsin-IMER and liquid chromatography, and high sequence coverage.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.58-64
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• 2012

Purpose: The objective of this study was to investigate the feasibility of anaerobic digestion of Chinese cabbage waste juice (CCWJ) and swine manure(SM). Methods: The anaerobic digestion test was conducted under batch and continuous conditions at mesophilic temperature ($36-38^{\circ}C$). The batch test was divided into Experiment I and II. In the Experiment I, biogas potential and production rate of CCWJ was evaluated. In Experiment II the effect of F/M ratio (2.0, 3.2, 4.9) at mixture ratio of 25:75(CCWJ: SM, % vol. basis) on biogas yield was studied. Results: CCWJ produced biogas and methane yield of 929 and 700 mL/g VS added respectively. The biogas yield from the mixture of CCWJ and SM was almost same at F/M ratio of 2.0 and 3.2 but dropped by 14% when F/M ratio increased from 3.2 to 4.9. In continuous test the mixture of CCWJ and SM (25:75, % vol. basis) produced biogas yield of 352 mL/g VS added which is around 11% higher compared to biogas yield from SM alone. Addition to biogas yield digester performance was also improved with co-digestion of CCWJ with SM. Conclusions: The results showed that the anaerobic digestion of CCWJ with SM could be promising for improving both the biogas yield and digester performance at mesophilic temperature.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.371-376
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• 2009

Microwave digestion is a preferred pretreatment method for agricultural samples because of its quick chemical reaction and minimum loss of analytes. In this research, a feedback temperature controller was developed to control the temperature inside a vessel for the microwave-assisted digestion system. An existing industrial microwave oven was fitted with the temperature controller for controlling inside temperature of the vessel. Four control methods, On/Off, proportional (P), proportional integral (PI), and proportional integral derivative (PID) were used and compared. Experimental results showed that PID control produced best temperature control performance. The PID controller could maintain the temperature of water sample and rice sample in the digestion system with error range of $-2.5{\sim}3.3^{\circ}C$ and $-1.9{\sim}0.5^{\circ}C$ at set temperature of $170^{\circ}C$, respectively.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.825-831
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• 2012

The retrofitting of a thickening unit process is widely considered in municipal wastewater treatment plants in Korea to enhance the anaerobic digestion efficiency. The authors examined the effect of feed concentration (2-34.1 g VS/L) and feed to microorganism (F/M) ratio (0.50-1.35 g VS/g VS) on anaerobic batch digestion of sewage sludge. Methane yield over 90 mL $CH_4/g$ $VS_{feed}$ was found at a feed concentration in the range of 12-26 g VS/L and a F/M ratio below 0.6 g VS/g VS. A high F/M ratio decreased methane yield and rate with oragnic acid accumulation. As sudden increase of sewage sludge concentration prior to anaerobic digestion would jeopardize the digester performance due to the rasied F/M ratio, gradual increase of the sludge feed concentration or an additional biomass retention in the digester is recommended.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.57-61
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• 2005

The number of sites at which a protein can be readily cleaved by a proteolytic enzyme is greatly influenced by its three-dimensional structure. For native, properly-folded proteins both the rate of cleavage and number of sites at which cleavage takes place are usually much less than for the denatured protein. In order to compare the tertiary structure of recombinant HepG2 type glucose transporter with that of its native counterpart in the erythrocyte, the pattern of tryptic cleavage of the protein expressed in insect cell membranes was therefore examined. After 30 minutes digestion, a fragment of approximate Mr 19,000-21,000 was generated. In addition to this, there were two less intensely stained fragments of apparent Mr 28,000 and 17,000. The pattern of labelling was similar up to 2 hours of digestion. However, the fragments of Mr 19,000-21,000 and Mr 17,000 were no longer detectable after 4 hours digestion. The observation of a very similar pattern of fragments yielded by tryptic digestion of the HepG2 type transporter expressed in insect cells suggests that the recombinant protein exhibits a tertiary structure similar if not identical to that of its human counterpart. Also, the endogenous sugar transporter(s) present in Sf21 cells did not bind cytochalasin B, the potent transporter inhibitor. Therefore, the baculovirus/Spodoptera frugiperda (Sf) cell expression system could be very useful for production of large amounts of human glucose transporters, heterologously.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.457-468
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• 2013

Based on the activated sludge model(ASM), a mathematical model which represents the aerobic sludge digestion by sequencing batch reactor(SBR) combined with ultrasonic treatment was composed and performed in this study. Aerobic digestion using sequencing batch reactor(SBR) equipped with ultrasound treatment was also experimented for the purpose of parameter calibration. Most of the presented kinetic parameters in ASM or ASM2 could be used for the aerobic digestion of sludge but the parameters related in hydrolysis and decay rate needed modification. Hydrolysis rate constant of organic matter in aerobic condition was estimated at $0.3day^{-1}$ and the maximum growth rate for autotrophs in aerobic condition was $0.618day^{-1}$. Solubilization reactions of particulate organics and nitrogen by ultrasonication was added in this kinetic model. The solubilization rate is considered to be proportional to the specific energy which is defined by specific ultrasound power and sonication time. The solubilization rate constant by ultrasonication was estimated at $0.202(W/L)^{-1}day^{-1}$ in this study. Autotrophs as well as heterotrophs also decomposed by ultrasonic treatment and the nitrification reaction was limited by the lack of autotrophs accumulation in the digester.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.40-49
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• 1997

In Korea, naked barley and tapioca are main raw materials for the production of fermentation ethyl alcohol, and one million drums bf 95% fermentation ethyl alcohol is produced per year by use of them. Stillage of alcoholic fermentation is mostly digested by methane fermentation process, and methane gas occured if methane fermentation process is recovered and mixed with fuel to decrease 25-30% for total fuel used in factories. In the anaerobic digestion process of naked barley stillage, supplement of nutrients is necessary to slove the problems caused by inhibitory materials contained if stillage and deficiency of nutrients. Therefore, the objective of this study was to examine why the anaerobic digesters using the naked barley distillery wastewater have shown the poor digestability frequently and how to control it. As the poor digestion was supposed to be occurred by the lack of iron as trace nutrient, the experiments were carried out to find out the optimum dosage and the way of addition of iron and to assess the quantitative evaluation of the type of iron in digesters. Initially, bottle test as batch digesters and lab-scaled continuous flow digesters were used in order to determine the digestion characteristics with tapioca and naked barley distillery wastewater. According to the results of batch tests, the poor digestion was caused by volatile fatty acids and could be improved by adding of calcium. The activity of the methanogenic bacteria were increased remarkably when the iron was added to the digester in the form of mixture with substrates.