• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.62-69
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• 2014

In the results of monitoring nitrate concentration in more than 8,000 groundwater wells around agro-livestock, the average and maximum nitrate concentration was 9.4 mg/L and 101.2 mg/L, respectively. Since about 31% of the monitoring wells was exceed the quality standard for drinking water, nitrate control such as remediation or source regulation is required to conserve safe-groundwater in South Korea. Typical nitrate-treatment technologies include ion exchange, reverse osmosis, and biological denitrification. Among the treatment methods, biological denitrification by indigenous microorganism has environmental and economic advantages for the complete elimination of nitrate because of lower operating costs compared to other methods. Major mechanism of the process is microbial reduction of nitrate to nitrite and nitrogen gas. Three functional genes (nosZ, nirK, nirS) that encode for the enzyme involved in the pathway. In this work, we tried to develop simple process to determine possibility of natural denitrification reaction by monitoring the functional gene. For the work, the functional genes in nitrate-contaminated groundwater were monitored by using PCR with specific target primers. In the result, functional genes (nosZ and nirK) encoding denitrification enzymes were detected in the groundwater samples. This method can help to determine the possibility of natural-nitrate degradation in target groundwater wells without multiplex experimental process. In addition, for field-remediation application we selected nitrate-contaminated site where 200~600 mg/L of nitrate is continuously detected. To determine the possibility of nitrate-degradation by stimulated-natural attenuation, groundwater was sampled in two different wells of the site and nitrate concentration of the samples was 300 mg/L and 616 mg/L, respectively. Fumarate for different C/N ratio was added into microcosm bottles containing the groundwater to examine denitrification rate depending on carbon concentration. In the result, once 1.5 times more than amount of fumarate stoichiometry required was added, the 616 mg/L of nitrate and 300 mg/L of nitrate were completely degraded in 8 days and 30 days. The nitrite, byproduct of denitrification process, was also completely degraded during the experimental period.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.292-303
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• 2022

An eco-friendly energy conversion device without the emission of pollutants has gained much attention due to the rapid use of fossil fuels inducing carbon dioxide emissions ever since the first industrial revolution in the 18th century. Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) that can produce water during the reaction without the emission of carbon dioxide are promising devices for automotive and residential applications. As a key component of PEMFCs, polymer electrolyte membranes (PEMs) need to have high proton conductivity and physicochemical stability during the operation. Currently, perfluorinated sulfonic acid-based PEMs (PFSA-PEMs) have been commercialized and utilized in PEMFC systems. Although the PFSA-PEMs are found to meet these criteria, there is an ongoing need to improve these further, to be useful in practical PEMFC operation. In addition, the well-known drawbacks of PFSA-PEMs including low glass transition temperature and high gas crossover need to be improved. Therefore, this review focused on recent trends in the development of high-performance PFSA-PEMs in three different ways. First, control of the side chain of PFSA copolymers can effectively improve the proton conductivity and thermal stability by increasing the ion exchange capacity and polymer crystallinity. Second, the development of composite-type PFSA-PEMs is an effective way to improve proton conductivity and physical stability by incorporating organic/inorganic additives. Finally, the incorporation of porous substrates is also a promising way to develop a thin pore-filling membrane showing low membrane resistance and outstanding durability.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.249-254
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• 2023

La_0.7-xCe_xSr_0.3MnO₃ specimens were fabricated by a solid state reaction method and structural and electrical properties with variation of Ce⁴⁺ contents were measured. All specimens exhibited a polycrystalline rhombohedral crystal structure, and the (110) peaks were shifted to low angle side with increasing the amount of Ce⁴⁺ contents. As Ce⁴⁺ ions with different ion radii and charges are substituted with La³⁺ ions, electrical properties are thought to be affected by changes in the double exchange interaction between Mn³⁺-Mn⁴⁺ ions due to distortion of the unit lattice, a decrease in oxygen vacancy concentration, and an increase in lattice defects. Resistivity gradually decrease as the amount of Ce⁴⁺ added increased, and negative temperature coefficient of resistance (NTCR) properties were shown in all specimens. In the La_0.5Ce_0.2Sr_0.3MnO₃ specimens, electrical resistivity, TCR and B-value were 31.8 Ω-cm, 0.55%/℃ and 605 K, respectively.

• Clean Technology
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.145-150
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• 2020

Nitrous oxide (N₂O) is one of the six greenhouse gases, and it is essential to reduce N₂O by showing a global warming potential (GWP) equivalent to 310 times that of carbon dioxide (CO₂). Selective catalytic reduction (SCR) is a technology that converts ammonia into harmless N₂ and H₂O by using ammonia as a reducing agent to remove NOx, one of the air pollutants; the process also produces high denitrification efficiency. In this study, the Fe-BEA catalyst was steam-treated at 100 ℃ for 2 h before Fe ion exchange in the fixed bed reactor in order to investigate the effect of the steam-treated Fe-BEA catalyst on the NH₃-SCR reaction. NH₃-SCR reaction test of synthesized catalysts was performed at WHSV = 180 h^-1, 370 to 400 ℃ in the fixed bed reactor. The Fe-BEA(100) catalyst steam-treated at 100 ℃ showed a somewhat higher activity than the Fe-BEA catalyst at 370 to 390 ℃. The catalysts were characterized by BET, ICP, NH₃-TPD, H₂-TPR, and ²⁷Al MAS NMR in order to determine the cause affecting NH₃-SCR activity. The H₂-TPR result confirmed that the Fe-BEA(100) catalyst had a higher reduction of isolated Fe³⁺ than the Fe-BEA catalyst, and that the steam treatment increased the amount of isolated Fe³⁺ as an active species, thus increasing the activity.

• Clean Technology
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.269-277
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• 2022

With the recent development of the biological enzymatic reaction industry, lactic acid (LA) can be mass-produced from biomass sources. In particular, a catalytic process that converts LA into acrylic acid (AA) is receiving much attention because AA is used widely in the petrochemical industry as a monomer for superabsorbent polymers (SAP) and as an adhesive for displays. In the LA conversion process, NaY zeolites have been previously shown to be a high-activity catalyst, which improves AA selectivity and long-term stability. However, NaY zeolites suffer from fast deactivation due to severe coking. Therefore, the aim of this study is to modify the acid-base properties of the NaY zeolite to address this shortcoming. First, base promoters, Ca ions, were introduced to the NaY zeolites to tune their acidity and basicity via ion exchange (IE) and incipient wetness impregnation (IWI). The IWI method showed superior catalyst selectivity and stability compared to the IE method, maintaining a high AA yield of approximately 40% during the 16 h reaction. Based on the NH₃- and CO₂-TPD results, the calcium salts that impregnated into the NaY zeolites were proposed to exit as an oxide form mainly at the exterior surface of NaY and act as additional base sites to promote the dehydration of LA to AA. The NaY zeolites were further treated with KOH before calcium impregnation to reduce the total acidity and improve the dispersion of calcium through the mesopores formed by KOH-induced desilication. However, this KOH treatment did not lead to enhanced AA selectivity. Finally, calcium loading was increased from 1wt% to 5wt% to maximize the amount of base sites. The increased basicity improved the AA selectivity substantially to 65% at 100% conversion while maintaining high activity during a 24 h reaction. Our results suggest that controlling the basicity of the catalyst is key to obtaining high AA selectivity and high catalyst stability.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.143-158
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• 1990

Metal complexes were prepared by reacting uranium (Ⅵ), thorium (Ⅳ) and rare earth metal (Ⅲ) ions including Nd (Ⅲ), Sm (Ⅲ) and Ho (Ⅲ) with macrocyclic ligands including five crown ethers, nine crownands and one cryptand ligands, and subjected to NMR studies in order to examine coordination sites of the ligands and compositions of the complexes formed. Among the marcocyclic ligands, crown ethers and crownand ligands have shown down-field shifts of the methylene protons of the lcigands by forming stable complexes with all the metal ions and the differences of chemical shifts were decreased as increasing of the cavity-size of crown ethers for the same metal ions and decreasing of the atomic number of the rare earth metals for the same ligands. It has been found that crownand 22 gave a stable complex with uranium(Ⅵ) ion by the coordination through both oxygen and nitrogen atoms of the ligand whereas no complex was formed with the rare earth metal(Ⅲ) ions, which on the other hand were found to form stable complexes with cryptand 221. The rest of the crowand ligands have also been found to form stable complexes with uranium(Ⅵ) ion by coordinating through all the oxygen and nitrogen atoms of the ligands whereas no complexes were formed with the rare earth metal(Ⅲ) ions. It has also been shown by 1H-NMR study that uranium(Ⅵ), thorium(Ⅳ) and rare earth metal(Ⅲ) ions formed 1:1 complexes with the macrocyclic ligands except for thorium(Ⅳ) complex of 12C4 in which the mole ratio of metal to ligand is 1:2. More stable metal complexes show larger changes in chemical shifts of the coordinated ligand protons. Finally, the rare earth metal(Ⅲ) complexes of 18C6 have shown ligand exchange reaction with the solvent molecules in acetylacetone solution, which was not observed for the uranium (Ⅵ) complexes.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.104-109
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• 2010

Purpose: $[^{18}F]$Fallypride plays an effective radiotracer for the study of dopamine $D_2/D_3$ receptor occupancy, neuropsychiatric disorders and aging in humans. This tracer has the potential for clinical use, but automated labeling efficiency showed low radiochemical yields about 5~20% with relatively long labelling time of fluorine-18. In present study, we describe an improved automatic synthesis of [$^{18}F$]Fallypride using different base concentration for routine clinical use. Materials and Methods: Fully automated synthetic process of [$^{18}F$]Fallypride was perform using the TracerLab $FX_{FN}$ synthesizer under various labeling conditions and tosyl-fallypride was used as a precursor. [$^{18}F$]Fluoride was extracted with various concentration of $K_{2.2.2.}/K_2CO_3$ from $^{18}O$-enriched water trapped on the ion exchange cartridge. After azeotropic drying, the labeling reaction proceeded in $CH_3CN$ at $100^{\circ}C$ for 10 or 30 min. The reaction mixture was purified by reverse phase HPLC and collected organic solution was exchanged by tc-18 Sep-Pak for the clinically available solution. Results: The optimal labeling condition of [$^{18}F$]Fallypride in the automatic production was that 2 mg of tosyl-fallypride in acetonitrile (1 mL) was incubated at $100^{\circ}C$ for 10 min with $K_{2.2.2.}/K_2CO_3$ (11/0.8 mg). [$^{18}F$]Fallypride was obtained with high radiochemical yield about $66{\pm}1.4%$ (decay-corrected, n=28) within $51{\pm}1.2$ min including HPLC purification and solid-phase purification for the final formulation. Conclusion: [$^{18}F$]Fallypride was prepared with a significantly improved radiochemical yield with high specific activity and shorten synthetic time. In addition, this automated procedure provides the high reproducibility with no synthesis failures (n=28).

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.341-347
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• 2008

The feasibility of commercializing the hydrothermal synthesis of Na-A type zeolite from siliceous mudstone has been conducted using a 50-liter bench-scale autoclave and the application of the zeolite as an environmental remediation agent. Siliceous mudstone, which is widely distributed around the Pohang area, was adopted as a precursor. The siliceous mudstone is favorable for the synthesis of zeolite because it contains 70.7% $SiO_2$ and 10.0% $Al_2O_3$, which are major ingredient of zeolite formation. The synthesis of zeolite was carried out under the following conditions that had been obtained from the previous laboratory-scale tests: 10hr reaction time, $80^{\circ}C$ reaction temperature, $Na_2O/SiO_2$ ratio = 0.6, $SiO_2/Al_2O_3$ ratio = 2.0 and $H_2O/Na_2O$ ratio= 98.6. The crystallinity and morphology of the zeolite formed were similar to those obtained from the laboratory-scale tests. The recovery and cation exchange ion capacity were 95% and 215 cmol/kg, respectively, which are slightly higher than those obtained in laboratory scale tests. To examine the feasibility of the zeolite as an environmental remediation agent, experiments for heavy metal adsorption to zeolite were conducted. Its removal efficiencies of heavy metals in simulated waste solutions decreased in the following sequences: Pb > Cd > Cu = Zn > Mn. In a solution of 1500 mg/L total impurity metals, the removal efficiencies for these impurity metals were near completion (> 99%) except for Mn whose efficiency was 98%. Therefore, the synthetic Na-A type zeolite was proven to be a strong absorbent effective for removing heavy metals.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.99-111
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• 2018

In this study three target radionuclides ($^{60}Co$, $^{137}Cs$, and $^{125}Sb$) were reacted with solid samples collected from the nuclear facility sites to investigate their sorption and mobility behaviors for preparing unexpected nuclear accidents. The highest sorption distribution coefficients ($K_{ds}$) of target radionuclides ($^{60}Co=947mL/g$, $^{137}Cs=2105mL/g$, $^{125}Sb=81.3mL/g$) were found in topsoil layer under groundwater condition, and the $K_d$ values of three radionuclides decreased in the order of fractured rock and bedrock samples under the same groundwater condition. High $K_d$ values of $^{60}Co$ in topsoil layer and fracture rock resulted from the clay minerals present, and the $K_d$ values decreased 58-69 % under seawater condition due to high ionic strength. $^{137}Cs$ sorption was controlled by the ion exchange reaction with $K^+$ on flayed edge sites (FES) of mica. The $^{137}Cs$ sorption was the most affected by seawater (89-97 % decrease), while $^{125}Sb$ sorption was not much affected by seawater. As the results of column and batch experiments, the retardation factors (R) of $^{137}Cs$, $^{60}Co$, and $^{125}Sb$ were determined about 5400-7400, 2000-2500, and 250-415, respectively, indicating no significant transport for these radionuclides even in fractured zone with groundwater. These results suggest that even in the case of severe nuclear accident at the nuclear facilities the mobility of released radionuclides ($^{60}Co$, $^{137}Cs$, and $^{125}Sb$) can be significantly retarded by the topsoil layer and fractured rock. In addition, the results of this study will be used for the safety and environmental performance assessment of nuclear facilities.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.19 no.9
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• pp.1218-1225
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• 2009

Difractose anhydrides (DFAs) is studied as a sweetener for diabetics because of its structural property. DFAs have four types: DFA I, III, IV (degradation of levan) and V (degradation of inulin). Especially, DFA IV has been shown to enhance the absorption of calcium in experiments using rats. Levan fructotransferase is an enzyme for producing di-d-fructose-2,6':6,2-dianhydride (DFA IV). To identify structural characterization, we purified wild-type and mutants (D63A, D195N and N85S) of levan fructotransferase (LFTase) from Microbacterium sp. AL-210. These proteins were purified to apparent homogeneity by Ni-NTA affinity column, Q-sepharose ion exchange and gel filtration chromatography and detected by SDS-PAGE. They were also analyzed by circular dichroism (CD) measurements, JNET secondary structure prediction, activity measurements at various temperatures, and pH analysis. The optimum pH for the enzyme-catalyzed reaction was pH 7.5 and optimum temperature was observed at $55^{\circ}C$. Along with wild-type LFTase, mutants were analyzed by CD measurement, fluorescence analysis and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). N85S showed less $\alpha$-helix and more $\beta$ strand than others. Also, N85S showed almost the same curve as wild-type in their steady-state fluorescence spectra, whereas mutant D63A and D195N showed higher intensity than wild-type. The amino acid sequence of wild-type LFTase was compared to the sequences of exo-inulinase from Aspergillus awamori, a plant fructan 1-exohydrolase from Cichorium intybus, and Thermotogo maritime (Tm) invertase and showed a high identity with Exo-inulinase from Aspergillus awamori.