• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.187-201
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• 2005

Bioprocessing technologies utilizing 'biorecognition' between a solid matrix and a protein is being widely experimented as a means to replacing the conventional, solution-based technology. Frequently the matrices are chromatographic resins with specific functional groups exposed outside. Since the reactions of and interactions with the proteins occur as they are attached to the solid matrix, this 'solid-phase' processing has distinct advantages over the solution-phase technology. Solid-phase refolding of inclusion body proteins uses ion exchange resins to adsorb denaturant-dissolved inclusion body. As the denaturant is slowly removed from the micromoiety around the protein, it is refolded into a native, three-dimensional structure. Once the refolding is complete, the folded protein can be eluted by a conventional elution technique such as the salt-gradient. This concept was successfully extended to 'EBA (expanded bed adsorption)-mediated refolding,' in which the denaturant-dissolved inclusion body in whole cell homogenate is adsorbed to a Streamline resin while cell debris and other impurity proteins are removed by the EBA action. The adsorbed protein follows the same refolding steps. This solid-phase refolding process shows the potential to improve the refolding yield, reduce the number of processing steps and the processing volume and time, and thus improve the overall process economics significantly. In this paper, the experimental results of the solid-phase refolding technology applied to several biopharmaceutical proteins of various types are presented.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.173-180
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• 2020

As the demand for fossil fuels continues to increase worldwide, carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentration in the air has increased over the centuries. The way to reduce CO₂ emissions to the atmosphere, carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology have been developed that can be applied to power plants and factories, which are primary emission sources. According to the climate change mitigation policy, direct air capture (DAC) in air, referred to as "negative emission" technology, has a low CO₂ concentration of 0.04%, so it is focused on adsorbent research, unlike conventional CCS technology. In the DAC field, chemical adsorbents using CO₂ absorption, solid absorbents, amine-functionalized materials, and ion exchange resins have been studied. Since the absorbent-based technology requires a high-temperature heat treatment process according to the absorbent regeneration, the membrane-based CO₂ capture system has a great potential Membrane-based system is also expected for indoor CO₂ ventilation systems and immediate CO₂ supply to smart farming systems. CO₂ capture efficiency should be improved through efficient process design and material performance improvement.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.10
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• pp.3543-3548
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• 2023

Shutdown chemistry evolution is performed in nuclear power plants at each refueling outage (RFO) to establish safe conditions to open system and minimize inventory of corrosion products in the reactor coolant system (RCS). After hydrogen peroxide is added to RCS during shutdown chemistry evolution, corrosion products are released and are removed by filters and ion exchange resins in the chemical volume control system (CVCS). Shutdown chemistry evolution including RCS clean-up time to remove released corrosion products impacts the critical path schedule during RFOs. The estimation of clean-up time prior to RFO can provide more reliable actions for RCS clean-up operations and transients to operators during shutdown chemistry. Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) shutdown calculator (SDC) enables to provide clean-up time by Co-58 peak activity through operational data from nuclear power plants (NPPs). In this study, we have investigated the results of EPRI SDC by shutdown chemistry data of Co-58 activity using NPP data from previous cycles and modeled the estimated clean-up time by EPRI SDC using average Co-58 activity of the NPP. We selected two RFO data from the NPP to evaluate EPRI SDC results using the purification time to reach to 1.3 mCi/cc of Co-58 after hydrogen peroxide addition. Comparing two RFO data, the similar purification time between actual and computed data by EPRI SDC, 0.92 and 1.74 h respectively, was observed with the deviation of 3.7-7.2%. As the modeling the estimated clean-up time, we calculated average Co-58 peak concentration for normal cycles after cycle 10 and applied two-sigma (2σ, 95.4%) for predicted Co-58 peak concentration as upper and lower values compared to the average data. For the verification of modeling, shutdown chemistry data for RFO 17 was used. Predicted RCS clean-up time with lower and upper values was between 21.05 and 27.58 h, and clean-up time for RFO 17 was 24.75 h, within the predicted time band. Therefore, our calculated modeling band was validated. This approach can be identified that the advantage of the modeling for clean-up time with SDC is that the primary prediction of shutdown chemistry plans can be performed more reliably during shutdown chemistry. This research can contribute to improving the efficiency and safety of shutdown chemistry evolution in nuclear power plants.