• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.34-41
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• 2020

Used disposable diapers have been considered for a long time as a type of waste difficult to recycle and valorize due to their composite nature including plastic, cellulose pulp, a super absorbent polymer and either urine, feces or both. Therefore, the fate of disposed diapers often is either incineration or landfill burial which both have various adverse environmental impacts. However, used disposable diapers contain nutrients: cellulose is an organic matter while urine and feces contain non negligible amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium which are primary nutrients included in most chemical fertilizers used in agriculture. In a scope of waste recycling and valorization, this study focuses on developing a method to achieve nutrient solution extraction from used disposable diapers. The experiment essentially consists in shredding the diapers and letting them macerate in solutions of sodium hydroxide with various concentrations to allow breaking down of the cellulose and super absorbent polymer and release of urine and feces before sterilizing the solutions in an autoclave to remove potential coliform bacteria. At the end of the experiment, a set of parameters is measured for the final solution to identify concentrations of nutrients as well as presence or absence of harmful substances. Results are discussed and directions for future studies are suggested, which include mechanization of the diapers shredding process or added aeration to enhance nitrification and absorption of extracted nutrients from plants.

• Journal of the Korea Furniture Society
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.317-325
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• 2009

On the ground of that toy as for infants is an important tool for education as well as play and furthermore it has a great influences on their growth and development, the present study intends to analyze the characteristics of the infant-oriented toys made of wood, the environment-friendly material. Object of the study includes the infants aged 2 to 7, and the wooden toy not only in domestic also international cases are investigated and analyzed from the point of function and design in particular, and the infant-oriented wooden toy is finally characterized. The wooden toys are classified in 5 items according to functions. There are toy helping a physical development like small muscles, toy improving the creativity, toy assisting language learning like Korean & English, toy contributing to number understanding and counting, and toy for imitation of social roles. The characteristics of the wooden toy are that the natural color & grain of wood are shown first, and also the natural texture & aroma of wood are felt secondly, and geometric design and shape are often presented thirdly, and recycling is available fourthly, and it is expensive finally. In order to revitalize the wooden toys lagging behind the cheap and diverse toys made of plastic, it is highly needed that development of the environment-friendly painting, unique design, marketing strategy of enterprises and use of domestic wood material.

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.427-432
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• 2009

This article deal with an overview of food waste treatment methods in Korea. Garbage trucks are operated manually by garbage workers who pick up the food wastes after food waste is placed in plastic bags by the road sides. However, there are a lot of problems such as, the smell from the split bags and the leachate, the loss of much energy and the complaints regarding the establishment new rubbish tips from the residents in the surrounding area. It also highlights our society's waste of resources. Although the new pneumatic waste transfer system or the dry method seem to have improved some of the environmental conditions, it still bears some problems, for example, the lack of reuse and recycling of resources and the economic problems. We have been analysed the advantages and disadvantages between the existing food waste system and the pneumatic waste transfer system. And the dry method and disposer were discussed. The results will indicate how the disposer can improve more than the existing systems and will provide the evidence to support.

• Journal of the Korea Furniture Society
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.80-90
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• 2016

The idea of Sustainable, first mentioned in "Our Future (Bruntdland)" from the United Nations report released in 1987 has been highly affect design disciplines in developed countries in 21st century. It relocated industrial society and structure's attentions to nature and recourse conservation and reuse. Designed and manufactured products eventually disposed and it leads to waste of resources as well as creates environmental issues. Unfortunately, vast majority of designers starts designing without anticipation of this matter and produce more believing this leads to more sales. However shorter life of a product will create bigger increase of resource consumption and waste than, importance of re-usage and recycle will eventually increase. In modern furniture industry metal and plastics are frequently used beside wood that material has been diverse than in past. However, there are lack of plans and regulations of re-usage of those material due to difficulties of separating each different materials and collecting due to it's size. This study would like to look into recycling rate, methods and usage of three major materials (wood, metal, plastic) that is typically used in current furniture industries. Furthermore, see the potential of sustainable furniture by analyzing furniture practices made by each different recycled material from old furniture and what designers should consider to achieve feasibility of sustainable furniture.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.57-66
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• 2017

PURPOSES : This study develops eco-friendly asphalt reinforcement materials applicable to bridge deck pavement. The main purpose is to ensure highly reliable quality applicable to structures and the possibility of practical application. The main target of the study is to develop materials that are environmentally friendly and capable of improving performance. METHODS : The application of double-reinforcement fiber improves the performance of the road pavement. 1. We use recycled film for application of sheet-typed reinforcement. 2. We use preprocessing fibers to reinforce the properties of composite pavement materials. RESULTS : The developed products may produce materials that fit the purpose of achieving stability and environmental friendliness. Sheet-typed reinforcements use more than 50% recycled resin. The most important type of damage to the asphalt layer is deflection (plastic deformation). These products have a very high deflection resistance of not less than 6,000 cycles/mm. In addition, all performance is excellent. Thus, it will be easier to access the field in the future. CONCLUSIONS : Fiber-reinforced asphalt pavement showed excellent performance. Sheet-typed reinforcements containing 50% recycling resin produced good performance in terms of functionality as well as environmental friendliness. Thus, enhancing the field applicability will enhance the usability of the reinforcements.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.38 no.10
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• pp.27-43
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• 2000

The CDP in Korea has been enforced for conserving resources and reducing environmental pollution since March, 1999. Therefore this thesis aims to investigate the degrees of consumer participation(CP), recognition and support, and to analysis of demographic variables, consumers' psychology, and attitudes which may influence the degrees of CP recognition, and support for the CDP. The results were as follows: First, the time of surrey was found to be statistically significant in consumer recognition and support. The degree of recognition was the lowest in first time. And the degree of consumer support was the highest in first time. Second, education, employment status and house shape were found to be statistically significant. The degree of consumer recognition was the highest among junior college graduates. The employed group was found to be the highest in the degree of participation. Third, the significant factors which influenced the degree of recognition was the time of survey, the perceived difficulty, effectiveness of the Consumer Deposit Program. The perceived difficulty, the time of survey were found to be related with the degree of consumer support. The most influential variables which influenced the degree of consumer participation were house shape, the perceived effectiveness, the degree of resource recycling, job and the degree of consumer recognition.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.19 no.7
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• pp.397-402
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• 2009

In this study, Ti powder was fabricated from Ti scrap by the Hydrogenation-Dehydrogenation (HDH) method. Hydrogenation reactions of Ti scrap occurred at near 450 $^{\circ}C$ with a sudden increase in the reaction temperature and the decreasing pressure of hydrogen gas during the hydrogenation process in the furnace. The dehydrogenation process was also carried out at 750 $^{\circ}C$ for 2hrs in a vacuum of $10^{-4}$ torr. After the HDH process, a deoxidation treatment was carried out with the Ca(purity: 99.5) at 700 $^{\circ}C$ for 2hrs in the vacuum system. It was found that the oxidation content of Ti powder that was deoxidized with Ca showed noticeably lower values, compared to the content obtained by HDH process. In order to fabricate Ti compacts, Ti powder was sintered at $1100\sim1400^{\circ}C$ for 2hrs under a vacuum of $10^{-4}$ torr. The relative density of compact was 94.9% at 1300 $^{\circ}C$. After sintering, all of the Ti compacts showed brittle fracture behavior, which occurred in an elastic range with short plastic yielding up to a peak stress.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.12
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• pp.2303-2311
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• 2005

Super low temperature has many applications nowadays, from the chemical processing, automotives manufacturing, plastic recycling, etc. Considering of its wide application in the present and the future, study of the super-low temperature refrigeration system should be actively carried out. Super low state temperature can be achieved by using multi-stage refrigeration system. This paper present the development and testing of cascade refrigerator system for achieving super-low temperature. On this experiment, two different types of HCFCs refrigerants are utilized, R-22 and R-23 were applied for the high stage and the low-pressure stage respectively. The lowest temperature in the low-pressure evaporator that can be achieved by this cascade refrigeration system is down to $-85^{\circ}C$. This experiment is aimed to study the effect of inlet pressure of the low-pressure stage evaporator and low-pressure stage compressors inlet pressure characteristics to the overall temperature characteristics of cascade refrigeration system.

• Clean Technology
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.37-46
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• 2024

Environmental problems caused by plastic waste have been continuously growing around the world, and plastic waste is increasing even faster after COVID-19. In particular, PP and PE account for more than half of all plastic production, and the amount of waste from these two materials is at a serious level. As a result, researchers are searching for an alternative method to plastic recycling, and plastic pyrolysis is one such alternative. In this paper, a numerical study was conducted on the pyrolysis behavior of non-condensable gas to predict the chemical reaction behavior of the pyrolysis gas. Based on gas products estimated from preceding literature, the behavior of non-condensable gas was analyzed according to temperature and residence time. Numerical analysis showed that as the temperature and residence time increased, the production of H₂ and heavy hydrocarbons increased through the conversion of the non-condensable gas, and at the same time, the CH₄ and C₆H₆ species decreased by participating in the reaction. In addition, analysis of the production rate showed that the decomposition reaction of C₂H₄ was the dominant reaction for H₂ generation. Also, it was found that more H₂ was produced by PE with higher C₂H₄ contents. As a future work, an experiment is needed to confirm how to increase the conversion rate of H₂ and carbon in plastics through the various operating conditions derived from this study's numerical analysis results.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.62 no.1
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• pp.36-43
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• 2024

Fishing net waste (FNW) constitutes over half of all marine plastic waste and is a major contributor to the degradation of marine ecosystems. While current treatment options for FNW include incineration, landfilling, and mechanical recycling, these methods often result in low-value products and pollutant emissions. Importantly, FNWs, comprised of plastic polymers, can be converted into valuable resources like syngas and pyrolysis oil through pyrolysis. Thus, this study presents a process for generating high-purity hydrogen (H₂) by catalytically pyrolyzing FNW in a CO₂ environment. The proposed process comprises of three stages: First, the pretreated FNW undergoes Ni/SiO₂ catalytic pyrolysis under CO₂ conditions to produce syngas and pyrolysis oil. Second, the produced pyrolysis oil is incinerated and repurposed as an energy source for the pyrolysis reaction. Lastly, the syngas is transformed into high-purity H₂ via the Water-Gas-Shift (WGS) reaction and Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA). This study compares the results of the proposed process with those of traditional pyrolysis conducted under N₂ conditions. Simulation results show that pyrolyzing 500 kg/h of FNW produced 2.933 kmol/h of high-purity H₂ under N₂ conditions and 3.605 kmol/h of high-purity H₂ under CO₂ conditions. Furthermore, pyrolysis under CO₂ conditions improved CO production, increasing H₂ output. Additionally, the CO₂ emissions were reduced by 89.8% compared to N₂ conditions due to the capture and utilization of CO₂ released during the process. Therefore, the proposed process under CO₂ conditions can efficiently recycle FNW and generate eco-friendly hydrogen product.