• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.105-112
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• 2019

On the purpose of conform the more stringent government regulation for turbid stormwater from construction sites, the feasibility and availability of synthetic fiber placing after the conventional protection barrier were tested in this study. Initially, comparative work on the filtering performance of fiber media and conventional gravel filter was carried out, 27% higher filtration capacity was obtained under the similar operational conditions. The filter efficiency was about 20 to 52% with a varying filter depth of 5 to 15cm, presuming at extreme storm flow conditions (800-1500 m/day of filtration rates). Fiber filter was found to have a similar filtration prosperity as grain media; namely, the separation efficiency is directly and inversely proportional to filter depth and rate, respectively. The effects of filter aid (polyaluminium chloride) on filter performance was also investigated, it greatly affected the turbidity reduction at the dosage of 2 mg/L. At the time of breakthrough, a simple filter washing was carried out, herein, the solid recovery achieved over than 88% and greatly determined by operational parameters. Based on the operational data, the empirical models aimed for predicting filtration efficiency were established, which can effectively determine the required filter depth and filtration area in field.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.116-122
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• 2022

Background: The recent COVID-19 pandemic is one of the worst disease outbreaks of the 21th century. Due to a lack of reliable antiviral therapeutics, wearing face masks is recommended to prevent airborne infection originating from virus-contaminated bioaerosols. Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the filtration efficiencies of face masks that are commercially available in South Korea for a biological aerosol of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and murine coronavirus, a well-known surrogate for human coronaviruses. Methods: We collected six different kinds of commercial masks: two Korea Filter (KF)94 (KF94-1, KF94-2) masks, one surgical (Surgical-1) mask, one anti-droplet (KF-AD-1) mask, and two dust (Dust-1, Dust-2) face masks. S. aureus (ATCC 6538), a well-performing test bacteria and murine coronavirus (ATCC VR-764) were prepared under a suitable culture condition. Then, a mask biological filtration tester was used to examine the microbial filtration efficiencies of masks. Test microorganisms were quantitatively measured via cultivation methods and microbial filtration efficiencies were calculated appropriately. Results: All face masks showed over 99.6% filtration efficiency for S. aureus or murine coronavirus. There were no significant differences among the bacterial filtration efficiencies of the face masks. KF94-1 (99.97±0.08%) and Dust-1 mask (99.97±0.07%) showed the highest (over 99.9%) filtration efficiency for murine coronavirus. KF94-1 or Dust-1 masks showed a significant virus filtration efficiency compared to Surgical-1 mask (p<0.05; Mann-Whitney U test). Conclusions: All the commercially available face masks used in this study can filter S. aureus or murine coronavirus in bioaerosols efficiently, regardless of the mask type. Therefore, our results suggest that wearing a certified face mask is a reliable means to prevent the transmission of infectious airborne diseases via biological aerosols.

• Particle and aerosol research
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.185-192
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• 2010

This paper reports that the installation of a carbon fiber ionizer in front of an activated carbon fiber(ACF) filter enhanced the antibacterial efficiency. In addition, the effect of the ionizer on the filtration of bioaerosols is reported. Negative air ions from the ionizer were used as antibacterial agent. The test bacteria(Escherichia coli) were aerosolized using an atomizer and were deposited on the ACF filter media for 10 minutes. E. coli deposited on the filter were exposed to negative air ions for 0, 1, 5 and 10 minutes. Then they were separated from the ACF filter by shaking incubation with nutrient broth for 4 hours. The separated E. coli were spread on nutrient agar plates and incubated at $37^{\circ}C$ for 1~3 days. The antibacterial efficiency of E. coli was measured using a colony counting method. The antibacterial efficiencies of E. coli exposed to negative air ions for 1, 5 and 10 minutes were 14%, 48% and 71%, respectively. The filtration efficiency was evaluated by measuring the number concentration of bioaerosols at the upstream and downstream of the filter media. The increase of filtration efficiency by air ions was 14%, that is similar to the 17% filtration efficiency by none air ions. The ozone concentration was below the detection limit (under 0.01ppm) when the carbon fiber ionizers were on.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.523-532
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• 2015

Hydrocyclone is widely used in industry, for its simple design, high capacity, low maintenance and low operational cost. The objective of this study is to develop hydrocyclone coagulation and filtration system. The system is made of hydrocyclone ballasted coagulation with polyaluminium chloride silicate (PACS) and upflow filter to treat micro particles in urban storm runoff. Roadside sediment particles (< $200{\mu}m$) was mixed with tap water to make various turbid suspensions to simulate urban storm runoff. The filter cartridge was filled with polyethylene media system and ran 1hr per everyday and total operation time were 8.19hrs and backwashing everyday after end of operation. The operation condition of flowrate was $8.2{\sim}11.9m^3/day$ (mean $10.1m^3/day$) and surface overflow rate (SOR) based on filter surface area was $45.5{\sim}65.9m^3/m^2/day$ (mean $55.7m^3/m^2/day$). The range of PACS dosage concentration was 14.0~31.5 mg/L. As the results of operation, the range of removal efficiency of turbidity, SS were 81.0~95.8% (mean 89.5%) 81.8~99.0% (mean 91.4%), respectively. An increase of filtration basin retention time brought on increased of removal efficiency of turbidity and SS, and increase of SOR brought on decreased of removal efficiency. During the first flush in urban area, storm runoff have an high concentration of SS (200~600 mg/L) and the filtration bed becomes clogged and decreased of removal efficiency. Backwashing begins when the drainage pipe valve at the filtration tank bottom is completely open (backwashing stage 1). Backwashing stage 2 was using air bubbles and water jet washing the media for 5 mins and open the drainage valve. After backwashing stage 1, 2, 61.83~64.04%, 18.53~27.51% of SS loading was discharged from filtration tank, respectively. Discharged SS loading from effluent was 7.12~14.79% and the range of residual SS loading in fliter was 2.26~5.00%. The backwashing effects for turbidity, SS were 89.5%, 91.4%, respectively. The hydrocyclone coagulation and filtration with backwashing system, which came out to solve the problems of the costly exchange filter media, and low efficiency of removing micro particles of filter type nonpoint treatment devices, is considered as an alternative system.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.1304-1309
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• 2006

In this study, removal efficiencies of treatment processes with C. tracer which is similar to the characteristics of Cryptosporidium were investigated. The highest removal efficiency of C. tracer was 97.16% when the input dose of PACI(Poly aluminium chloride, $Al_2O_3$(10%)) was 10 mg/L. The higher turbidity and SS removal efficiencies were, the more C. tracer cohesion efficiency increased. Also when pH of the raw water was high, removal efficiency of C. tracer increased. As the correlationship($R^2$) between effluent turbidity after coagulation-precipitation and removal efficiency of C. tracer was 0.9506, removal efficiency of Cryptosporidium could be evaluated by effluent turbidity after coagulation-precipitation. Also the range of C. tracer removal efficiency by sand filtration was $94.00{\sim}95.83%$ and the correlationship($R^2$) between effluent turbidity after filtration and removal efficiency of C. tracer was 0.8704. Therefore, when filtration-effluent turbidity is good under the optimized coagulation condition, removal efficiencies of Cryptosporidium by coagulation-precipitation, sand rapid filtration and sand rapid filtration after coagulation-precipitation are estimated as 1.55 log(97.16%), 1.38 log(95.83%) and 2.31 log(99.51%) respectively.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.598-607
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• 2004

In this study, the effects of two pre-treatment processes were observed prior to membrane filtration: pre-coagulation and pre-ozonation. To compare the effect of two above-mentioned pre-treatments, we adopted the four schemes: first one is direct membrane filtration of river surface water, second one is membrane filtration after pre-coagulation, third one is membrane filtration after pre-ozonation and fourth one is membrane filtration after pre-coagulation and pre-ozonation. There are two exceptional characteristics in applied processes. One is the usage of the MF membrane which has high ozone resisting characteristic. Therefore, ozone resides in membrane module during filtration. The other is adoption of Jet Mixed Separator (JMS) as coagulation-sedimentation process. The change in transmembrane pressure and permeate water quality were also examined. As a result, considering the filtration performance efficiency and permeate water quality, the process composed of filtration with combination of both pre-coagulation and pre-ozonation was proved most effective. The improved efficiency was due to the reduction of loading rate of fouling inducing materials to membrane module by coagulation process as well as variable reactions, such as degradation, particle destabilization and coagulation, occurred by residual ozone in membrane module. The additional effect of pre-coagulation before pre-ozonation is suppression of AOC, one of the by-products induced by ozonation. Therefore, combination of pre-coagulation and pre-ozonation is the effective process to overcome the major de-merit of ozonation i.e. by-products formation.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.203-215
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• 2015

Objectives: This study was designed to evaluate the filtration efficiencies and pressure drops of five commercial cloth masks (4 plate type, 1 cup type) in comparison to the performance of a class 1 disposable respirator (reference respirator). A further objective was to evaluate the effects of the number of layers and wash treatment independently on filtration efficiencies and pressure drops. Methods: Polydisperse NaCl aerosols were generated in an aerosol chamber and their concentrations were measured by an optical particle counter (OPC) in the size range of $0.3{\sim}10{\mu}m$ (five channels). Results: The filtration efficiencies of the five cloth masks and the reference respirator were D: 9.5%, C: 18.5%, E: 23.6%, A: 28.5%, B: 29.7% and R: 91.1%, respectively, and the pressure drops through them were C, D: 0.8 Pa, E: 1.7 Pa, B: 6.4 Pa, A: 42.7 Pa and R: 19.3 Pa, respectively. The filtration efficiencies of the cloth masks and reference respirator were below the class 1 respirator criterion (${\geq}94.0%$) of the Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL) and Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS). The pressure drops satisfied the class 1 respirator criterion (${\leq}70Pa$) of MOEL and MFDS. When the cloth masks were folded into two and four layers, the filtration efficiencies of cloth masks A, B, C, D (plate type) increased 1.7-4.6 times, and 2.3-6.8 times, respectively, compared to the efficiencies of the same products in a single layer. Pressure drops increased as the number of layers was increased. The filtration efficiency of cloth mask E with a liner was 1.3 times higher than that of the same mask without a liner, and the pressure drop was lower in the no-liner configuration. After a single washing, the filtration efficiencies of all the cloth mask products decreased 1.04-4.0 times compared to those of the same products intact. For the cloth masks C and E, their filtration efficiencies were significantly decreased after washing (p<0.05). The pressure drops of all cloth masks were 1.2-2.0 times lower after washing. Conclusions: The filtration efficiencies of the five cloth masks were below 30% and did not improve greatly by increasing the number of layers. After a single washing, their performances decreased. Considering the above and other issues identified with cloth masks, such as poor fit and stretched fibers through use, people should not expect protection against particulate matters from the cloth masks on the market.

• Particle and aerosol research
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.99-108
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• 2014

Liquid filtration by membrane filters is essential for the preparation of ultrapure water in semiconductor manufacturing processes. The separation of submicrometer particles suspended in ultrapure water with a laminated fibrous membrane filter was studied numerically and experimentally in the present work. We found that an electrical double layer around a single fiber expanded to a large extent at a low ion concentration, as in ultrapure water, and deformed toward the upstream of the fiber with increasing filtration velocity. Since an increase in the electrical double-layer thickness leads to a decrease in the electrical potential gradient, particles with the same polarity as the fiber approach the fiber more easily and are captured at a high filtration velocity. Experimental results also confirmed that the collection efficiency of polystyrene latex(PSL) particles through a PTFE filter became higher as the filtration velocity increased.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.53-63
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• 2022

Objectives: This study was designed to evaluate the filtration efficiency, inhalation resistance, and liquid resistance of commercial reusable masks in comparison to the performance of KF-AD masks (reference masks). Methods: Thirty-six masks were purchased from an online market. Filtration efficiency and inhalation resistance were determined in the same manner as in MFDS certification testing, respectively using TIL/IL & Filter Test 1300S (SFP Services, UK) and Breathing Resistance Analyzer DA2001 (Lambda Ray, South Korea). Results: Most of the filtration efficiencies found for the 19 masks were far lower than the test standard for KF-certified masks. Four masks met KF94 and three masks even met KF80. Most inhalation resistances were also much lower than the standard, with many almost one-half of the standard. In addition, all the masks except KF-AD masks did not pass the liquid resistance test. Conclusions: Although most of the filtration efficiency performance results found in this study for the reusable masks, which emerged as an alternative, were lower than the standard for health masks, multi-use masks can be used with a replacement filter inserted.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.675-687
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• 2012

Applying an external electric field across air filter media is one of methods to improve the filtration performance. Metal wire meshes have been commonly used as electrodes situated on both sides of a thick filter pad. For a thin filter medium a short circuit, known as the biggest drawback for applying an external electric field to air filter, can occur at the closest point between electrodes. In this study several types of insulated meshes were prepared by coating #50 meshes with a dielectric material, Nylon 66, and the filtration property of air filter was evaluated at the presence of external electric field using those insulated meshes as electrodes and compared with that of filters using bared meshes. The collection efficiency of tested filter was increased from 78% to 95% for singly charged 100 nm particles by application of external electric field. As a result, there was no significant difference in collection efficiency between filters with insulated and bared electrodes. Similar results could be also seen from the tests using polydisperse particles. Finally, through this study, we found that the insulation of mesh electrodes doesn't affect the filtration performance of fibrous air filter under external electric field.