• Carbon letters
• /
• v.7 no.2
• /
• pp.105-113
• /
• 2006

The electro-chemical removal (ECR) of water pollutants by metal-ACF electrodes from wastewater was investigated over wide range of ECR time. The ECR capacities of metallic ACF electrodes were related to physical properties such as adsorption isotherm, surface area and pore size and to reaction time. Surface morphologies and elemental analysis for the metal supported ACFs after electro-catalytic reaction were investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy disperse X-ray (EDX) to explain the changes in adsorption properties. The IR spectra of metallic ACFs for the investigation of functional groups show that the electro-catalytic treatment is consequently associated with the removal of pollutants with the increasing surface reactivity of the activated carbon fibers. The metal-ACFs were electro-catalytically reacted to waste water to investigate the removal efficiency for the COD, T-N, $NH_4$-N, $NO_3$-N and $NO_2$-N. From these removal results of the piggery waste using metallic ACFs substrate, satisfactory removal performance was achieved. The removal efficiency of the metallic ACFs substrate was mainly determined by the properties of the material for adsorption and trapping of organics, and catalytic effects.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
• /
• v.22 no.2
• /
• pp.153-160
• /
• 2020

Most studies defined microplastic (MP) as plastic particles less than 5 mm. The ubiquity of MP is raising awareness due to its potential risk to humans and the environment. MP can cause harmful effects to humans and living organisms. This paper review aimed to provide a better understanding of the sources, pathways, and impacts of MP in the environment. MP can be classified as primary and secondary in nature. Moreover, microplastic can also be classified as based on its physical and chemical characteristics. Stormwater and wastewater are important pathways of introducing MP in large water bodies. As compared to stormwater, the concentrations of MP in wastewater were relatively lower since wastewater treatment processes can contribute to the removal of MP. In terms of polymer distribution, wastewater contains a wider array of polymer varieties than stormwater runoff. The most common types of polymer found in wastewater and stormwater runoff were polypropylene (PP), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polystyrene (PS), polyethylene (PE) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The continuous discharge and the increasing number of MP in the environment can pose greater hazards and harmful effects on humans and other living organisms. Despite the growing number of publications in relation to MP, further studies are needed to define concrete regulations and management strategies for mitigating the detrimental effects of MP in the environment.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
• /
• v.40 no.2
• /
• pp.102-111
• /
• 1998

Large amount of sludge have been generating in the process of water and wastewater treatment in urban area, and it has been making many environmental problems. Currently almost of sludge is landfilled, and since sludge is difficult to handle and dehydrate, the permeated water from the filled-in ground contaminate the surrounding soil and groundwater which may cause serious environmental and sociological problems. The organic component in sludge can be almost removed through the heat treatment process, and the final product is called artificial soil or artificial media according to the temperature control. To produce artificial media using sludge, chabazite and lime were used as an additive, and the mixture of sludge & additives was thermally treated in the firing kiln at about 800~1, 100。C for about fifteen minutes. The physical and chemical characteristics of the produced artificial media were analyzed, and it showed that it can be used as an artificial media for plant production or soil conditioner for farmland. The concentrations of the toxic heavy metals in the artificial media were lower than the soil quality standard for farmland. The characteristics of produced artificial media, using the mixture of sludge and additives through the heat treatment, is similar to the natural chabazite and soil. The analyzed result of the mineral composition of artificial media showed that it has a characteristics similar to natural stable soil, so the produced artificial media may be applied to farmland or water culture without causing adverse effect. Therefore this study showed that the above process can be a feasible alternative for sludge treatment.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
• /
• v.24 no.4
• /
• pp.453-462
• /
• 2010

Nowadays, the challenges of ensuring good water quality and quantity of river are becoming more important for human society, but there has been troublesome for purifying river water. In this study, we performed the fundamental study of a river water treatment system using riverside soil and eco-friendly optimal media for improving river water quality and can also treat a large amount of river water. As the results of the physical and chemical characterization of the two different soils (Kyungan and Chungrang, The Republic of Korea), which were collected from real stream sides in the Han River basin, and five kinds of media (zeolite, perlite, steel slag, woodchip and mulch), both soils were all classified as a sand, and effective size ($D_{10}$) and uniformity coefficient (U) of the soil were about 0.2 mm and 4 or so, respectively. Through the batch and column experiments with the soil and eco-friendly media, zeolite and mulch were found to be efficient for decreasing nitrogen. In addition, steel slag was especially superior to the other media for phosphorus removal. From soil reforming tests volume ratios were 2.8, 1, and 1 of Kyungan soil, zeolite, and steel slag hydraulic conductivity of mixed soil was increased $1.30{\times}10^{-2}$ from $2.85{\times}10^{-3}$ of Kyungan soil, and the removal efficiencies of nitrogen and phosphorus were also improved. These results show that reforming of the soil enhanced the purification of a large amount of water, and zeolite, mulch, and steel slag might be facilitated as proper functional media.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
• /
• v.35 no.4
• /
• pp.301-309
• /
• 2021

Chitosan, natural organic polymer, has been applied in water treatment as adsorbent due to non-toxic for human being. The amino group as functional group, can interacts with cation and anion at the same time. The prepared chitosan bead (HCB) was crosslinked to increase chemical stability (HCB-G) and both HCB and HCB-G were prepared to increase physical strength by drying referred to DCB and DCB-G, respectively. The adsorption effect for crosslinking and drying for four types of chitosan bead was tested using pseudo fist order (PFO), pseudo second order (PSO), and intraparticle diffusion model (ID). Regardless of PFO and PSO, the order of K, rate constant, is as followed: HCB > HCB-G > DCB > DCB-G for Cu(II) and phosphate. Drying leading to contraction of bead significantly reduced adsorption rate due to reduce the porosity of chitosan. In addition, crosslingking also negatively effect on adsorption rate. When compared with Cu(II) using hydrogel bead, phosphate showed higher value than Cu(II) for PFO and PSO. The application of ID showed that both hydrogel beads (HCB and HCB-G) obtained a very low R² ranging to 0.37 to 0.81, while R² can be obtained to over 0.9 for DCB and DCB-G, indicting ID is appropriate for low adsorption rate.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
• /
• v.30 no.4
• /
• pp.459-469
• /
• 2016

Gas hydrate desalination process is based on a liquid to solid (Gas Hydrate, GH) phase change followed by a physical process to separate the GH from the remaining salty water. The GH based desalination process show 60.5-90% of salt rejection, post treatment like reverse osmosis (RO) process is needed to finally meet the product water quality. In this study, the energy consumption of the GH and RO hybrid system was investigated. The energy consumption of the GH process is based on the cooling and heating of seawater and the heat of GH formation reaction while RO energy consumption is calculated using the product of pressure and flow rate of high pressure pumps used in the process. The relation between minimum energy consumption of RO process and RO recovery depending on GH salt rejection, and (2) energy consumption of electric based GH process can be calculated from the simulation. As a result, energy consumption of GH-RO hybrid system and conventional seawater RO process (with/without enregy recovery device) is compared. Since the energy consumption of GH process is too high, other solution used seawater heat and heat exchanger instead of electric energy is suggested.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
• /
• v.44 no.4
• /
• pp.139-148
• /
• 2002

Pilot study was performed to examine the feasibility of the pond system for further polishing of treatment wetland effluent from December 2000 to June 2001. The wetland system used for the experiment was highly effective to treat the sewage during the growing season, but it was less effective and its effluent was still high to discharge to the receiving water body. Therefore, the wetland effluent may need further treatment to prevent water quality degradation. Pond system could be used to hold and further polish the wetland effluent during the winter season and ots feasibility was evaluated in this study. Additional water quality improvement was apparent in the pond system during winter season, and the pond effluent could be good enough to meet the effluent water quality standards if it is properly managed. Timing of the pond effluent discharge appears to be critical for pond system management because it is a closed system and whole water quality constituents are affected by physical, chemical, and biological pond environments. Once algae started to grow in mid-April, constituents in the pond water column interact each other actively and its control becomes more complicated. Therefore, upper layer of the pond water column which is clearer than the lower layer my need be discharged in March right after ice cover melted. In the experiment, water quality of the upper water column was markedly clear in March than ant other times probably because of freezing-thawing effect. The remaining lower water column could be further treated by natural purification as temperature goes up or diluted with better quality of wetland effluent for appropriate water uses. This study demonstrated the feasibility of pond system for subsequent management of wetland effluent during the winter season, however, more study is needed for field application.

• Membrane Journal
• /
• v.26 no.1
• /
• pp.70-75
• /
• 2016

The reuse of wastewater is being diffused to manage and develop the water resources. Generally, the treated wastewater is discharged to the river after being treated to meet the effluent quality standard or reused for diverse uses through the reprocessing. And recently, as the reuse of the treated wastewater is activated, the technologies to utilize for the high quality water resources such as industrial water by reusing the wastewater with Membrane Distillation (MD) are under development. In this study, the direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) process has been applied to treat sewage discharge water for water reuse. The laboratory scale experiment was performed by using a hydrophobic PVDF membrane with the pore size of $0.22{\mu}m$. The influence of operating parameters, such as feed temperature, feed flow rate, feed concentration, on the permeate flux and rejection has been investigated. All filtration tests were conducted till the feed volume reached a concentration factor of 3.0. Thus, the operating period ranged between 19 hr and 49 hr depending on filtration performance. The results showed that above 92% of TN, TP, COD and TOC in the feed could be rejected regardless of an operating condition. The water flux was ranged from 13.8 to 20.3 LMH. The lowest flux was obtained at the operating condition with the feed temperature of $50^{\circ}C$ and feed flow velocity of 500 mL/min while the highest one was measured with $60^{\circ}C$ and 900 mL/min. When the concentration factor reached 3.0, water flux declined by approximately ranged from 14.5% to 33.3%. But the fouling in MD is almost fully reversible, with more than 90% recovery of permeate water flux following a DI water rinse without the addition of chemical cleaning reagents.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
• /
• v.28 no.4
• /
• pp.15-22
• /
• 2020

The landfill gas produced in landfill is generally made up of methane(CH4) and carbon dioxide(CO2) of more than 90%, with the remainder made up of hydrogen sulfide(H2S). However, separate pre-treatment facilities are essential as hydrogen sulfide contained in landfill gas is combined with oxygen during the combustion process to generate sulfur oxides and acid rain combined with moisture in the atmosphere. Various desulfurization technologies have been used in Korea to desulfurize landfill gas. Although general desulfurization processes apply various physical and chemical methods, such as treatment of sediment generation according to the CaCO3 generation reaction and treatment through adsorbent, there is a problem of secondary wastes such as wastewater. As a way to solve this problem, a biological treatment process is used to generate and treat it with sludge-type sulfide (S°) using a biological treatment process.In this study, as a basic study of technology for utilizing the biological treatment by-products of hydrogen sulfide in landfill gas, an experiment was conducted to use the by-product as a mixture of concrete. According to the analysis of the mixture concrete strength of sulfur products, the mixture of sulfur by-products affects the strength of concrete and shows the highest strength value when mixing 10%.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.95-104
• /
• 2018

Copper pollution around the world has caused serious public health problems recently. The heavy metal adsorption on traditional membranes from wastewater is limited by material properties. Different adsorptive materials are embedded in the membrane matrix and act as the adsorbent for the heavy metal. The carbonized leaf powder has been proven as an effective adsorbent material in removing aqueous Cu(II) because of its relative high specific surface area and inherent beneficial groups such as amine, carboxyl and phosphate after carbonization process. Factors affecting the adsorption of Cu(II) include: adsorbent dosage, initial Cu(II) concentration, solution pH, temperature and duration. The kinetics data fit well with the pseudo-first order kinetics and the pseudo-second order kinetics model. The thermodynamic behavior reveals the endothermic and spontaneous nature of the adsorption. The adsorption isotherm curve fits Sips model well, and the adsorption capacity was determined at 61.77 mg/g. Based on D-R model, the adsorption was predominated by the form of physical adsorption under lower temperatures, while the increased temperature motivated the form of chemical adsorption such as ion-exchange reaction. According to the analysis towards the mechanism, the chemical adsorption process occurs mainly among amine, carbonate, phosphate and copper ions or other surface adsorption. This hypothesis is confirmed by FT-IR test and XRD spectra as well as the predicted parameters calculated based on D-R model.