• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.27-35
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• 2021

This study examined the possibility of reutilization of soil reclaimed from contaminated sites after completing remediation. The current status of soil remediation methods in Korea was reviewed and physicochemical properties of soil before and after remediation processes were examined to access the recycling possibility of reclaimed soils based on Recycling Aggregate Quality Standard. The most commonly practiced soil remediation techniques are soil washing, land farming, and thermal desorption. These techniques tend to deteriorate various soil properties including electrical conductivity(EC), organic matter content(OM), available P₂O₅, and cation exchange capacity(CEC). Evaluation of the properties of soil retrieved after each remediation process indicated soil washing may yield the most suitable soil for use as a filling, covering, back-filling, road pavement, and blocking materials, In addition, the soils reclaimed from land farming and thermal desorption have potential utility as a filling, covering and road pavement materials.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.22 no.9
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• pp.5-14
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• 2006

Generally, the sediments contain significant water, clay, colloidal fraction and contaminants, and can result in soft strata with high initial void, and its potential hazards in subsurface environments exist. Electrokinetic technique has been used in sedimentation for volume reduction of slurry tailing wastes and in remediation for extraction of contaminants from contaminated soils. In this research, the coupled effects of sedimentation and remediation of contaminated sediments are focused using electrokinetic sedimentation and remediation techniques from experimental aspects. A series of laboratory experiments including variable conditions such as initial solid content of the specimen, concentration level of the contaminant, and magnitude of applied voltage are performed with the contaminated sediment specimens mixed with ethylene glycol. Commercially available high specification Kaolin was used to simulate slurried sediment. From the test results, the settlement of specimen increases with increasing of applied voltage and decreasing of solid content and contamination level. The density of specimen increases due to settlement of specimen in the process of electrokinetic sedimentation and decreases due to extraction of organic contaminant in the process of electrokinetic remediation.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.788-792
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• 2009

Railroad is well known for eco-friendly transportation system. But, for past few decades, there might be happened many contamination acts in railway facility sites. Industrial and municipal solid wastes produced to maintain and fix trains were dumped to underground of railroad depot area. To develop and reconstruct this area, we should remediate the contaminated soil and ground water. This study was conducted to evaluate the soil pollution status of railroad depot and propose the optimum remediation processes. Our investigation showed that main pollutants sources were TPH and some heavy metals from the dump site. The surveying results for the soil under rail track and crossing nose areas showed TPH contamination from crossing nose area causing lubricant agent. It could be use and rehabilitate the railroad facility areas to an intended purpose with an application of well designed in-situ and ex-situ remediation processes.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.311-318
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• 2007

Soil contamination in Korea has been accelerated every year. Because of their persistence and cumulative tendency in the environment, soil contaminants have potential long-term environmental and health concerns and it is estimated to cost enormous expense for clean-up. Korea government has legislated the law on conservation of soil environment in mid 1990s, and managed and treated hazardous wastes in contaminated sites as a remediation policy since then. Soil remediation technologies are classified into in-situ/ex-situ or biological/physico-chemical/thermal processes according to applied places or treatment methods, respectively. In Korea, clean-up of polluted sites has been mostly carried out at military areas, railroad-related sites and small-scale oil spilt sites. For these cases, in-situ remediation technologies such as soil vapor extraction (SVE) and bioventing were mainly used. In recent days, an environmental-friendly soil remediation emerged as a new concept - for example, a new soil remediation process using nanotechnology or molecular biological study and an integrated process which can overcome the limitation of individual process. To have better applicability of remediation technologies, comprehensive understandings about the pollutants and soil characteristics and the suitable techniques are required to be investigated. Above all, development of environmental technologies based on the sustainability accompanied by public attention can improve soil environment in Korea.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.11-15
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• 2015

The three processes of 1) high- & low-temperature microwave heatings, 2) the soil washing, and 3) the thermal desorption processes in soil remediation are analysed on the treatment cost data for 2003-2012 years. The cost of microwave heating method with at temperature 500-700℃, for 30 minutes, and at 4-6 kW is approximately 10 $/ton (13,000 ₩) due to the deep through heating of micro-wave, the soil washing with chemicals is about 80 $/ton (85,000 ₩) due to the chemicals & duration, and the thermal desorption process is around 40 $/ton (41,000 ₩) from the less efficiency. Furthermore the sustainability has been assessed, and suggestions are made. 1) Green; the minimal environmental footprint, 2) Growth; the least cost, 3) Shared; the social & environmental justice, 4) Smart; the microwave characteristics of deep through irradiation & heating, and 5) Mutuality; the flexibility of the technology. More additives including water, the government support, and public relation are suggested realizing the microwave in this condition is not harmful to human beings.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.114-116
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• 2005

Natural attenuation has been actively studied and often selected as final clean-up process in remediation of contaminated ground-water and soil for the last decade. Accordingly, understanding of natural processes affecting the fate and transport of contaminants in the subsurface becomes important for a success of implementation of the natural remediation strategy, Contaminant advection and diffusion processes in the unsaturated zone are naturally related to environmental changes in the atmosphere. The atmospheric pressure changes affecting the transport of contaminants in the subsurface are investigated in this study. Moisture content, trichloroethylene (TCE) concentration, temperature, and pressure variations in the subsurface were measured for the July, August, November, and December 2001 at Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey. These data were used for a one-phase flow and one-component transport model in simulating the soil-gas flow and accordingly the TCE transport in the subsurface in accordance with the atmosphere pressure variations at the surface. The soil-gas velocities during the sampling periods varied with a magnitude of $10^{-6}\;to\;10^{-7}\;m\;s^{-1}$ at land surface. The TCE advection fluxes at land surface were several orders of magnitude smaller than the TCE diffusion fluxes. A sensitivy analysis indicated that advection fluxes were more sensitive to changes in geo-environmental conditions compared to diffusion fluxes. Of all the parameters investigated in this study, moisture content has the most significant effect on TCE advection and diffusion fluxes.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.91-96
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• 2001

Restoration of contaminated soils to an environmentally acceptable condition is important. One of the newer techniques in soil remediation is a method based on electrokinetic phenomena in soils. The technology uses electricity to affect chemical concentrations and water flow through the pores of soils. An important advantage of electrokinetic soil remediation over other in-situ processes such as soil flushing is the capability of control over the movement of the contaminants. Because the migration of the contaminants is confined by the electric field, there is little dispersion outside the treatment zone. Furthermore, the process is effective for soils with low and variable permeability. In the present study, the distributions of cadmium in the electrokinetic processing of kaolinite under the condition of constant applied voltage are investigated. Cadmium accumulates near the cathode without reducing the diffusion of hydroxide ion into the soil. In keeping the catholyte pH at neutrality, cadmium migrates toward the cathode without any accumulation of cadmium near the cathode and is successfully removed at the cathode reservoir. It was also found that the progress of electrokinetic processing of cadmium could be gasped to a certain extent by monitoring the local voltage and the current density.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.269-274
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• 2004

The performance of a newly designed wastewater treatment process equipped with an anaerobic and two intermittent aeration tanks operated alternately was investigated. During the experimental period, several types of cyclic operating schedules with different aeration and non aeration time were examined for the optimization. At all modes, the removals of organic matter and SS were highly achieved. With respect to T-N removal, however, the cycle length for aeration on/off affected the efficiencies. At the optimal operating mode, the ORP bending point indicating the disappearance of nitrate was observed. Considering the influent wastewater characteristics and cyclic operating schedules, it can be suggested that T-P removal is much more BOD/T-P ratio and/or its load dependant rather than the aeration on/off time. The results obtained from pilot-scale test showed the competitive advantage of this alternating process through an omission of nitrate recycle and operational flexibility against influent load variations when comparing with other continuous flow processes.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2003.09a
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• pp.314-317
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• 2003

Plants may enhance the remediation of munitions at contaminated soils using various natural processes. A computer model can be used as a valuable tool for assisting phytoremediation by predicting the transport and fate of target contaminants at remediation sites. For this research, modeling of phytoremediation and bioremediation of soil contaminated with 2, 4, 6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) was studied. Indian mallow (Abutilion avicennae) was grown in columns packed with 126mg TNT/kg contaminated soils for 50 days and a simulation model was developed to simulate the transport and fate of TNT and its breakdown products interacting with plant roots in a partially saturated soil. The column test showed the substantially enhanced reduction of TNT and greater soil microbial activity in Indian mallow planted soil compared to unplanted soil. The model successfully simulated the fate of TNT and by-products in phytoremediation. The results suggested that plants could provide favorable environments for reduction of TNT.

• Journal of environmental and Sanitary engineering
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.52-56
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• 2002

The study was carried out to evaluate the characteristics of biodegradation by Pseudomonas putida G7 in soil column. The reactor system was used to investigate mass transfer of VOCs as Toluene in a column of unsaturated soil. Determination of the fate of VOCs in unsaturated soil is necessary to evaluate the feasibility of natural attenuation as a VOCs remediation strategy. The objective of this study was to develop a mechanistically based mathematical model that would consider the interdependence of VOC transport, microbial activity, and sorptive interactions in a moist, unsaturated soil. Because the focus of the model was on description of natural attenuation, the advective VOCs transport that is induced in engineered remediation processes such as vapor extraction was not considered. It can be concluded that the coefficient for gas liquid mass-transfer was found to be a key parameter controlling the ability of bacteria to VOCs. Finally, it appeared that bioremediation technology of VOCs which are difficult to be decomposed by chemical methods.