• Proceedings of the Korean Environmental Sciences Society Conference
• /
• 2019.10a
• /
• pp.134-134
• /
• 2019

Utilization of organic waste as a renewable energy source is promising for sustainability and mitigation of climate change. Pyrolysis converts organic waste to gas, oil, and biochar by incomplete biomass combustion. Biochar is widely used as a soil conditioner and adsorbent. Biochar adsorbs/desorbs metals and ions depending on the soil environment and condition to act as a nutrient buffer in soils. Biochar is also regarded as a carbon storage by fixation of organic carbon. Phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) are strictly controlled in many wastewater treatment plants because it causes eutrophication in water bodies. P and N is removed by biological and chemical methods in wastewater treatment plants and transferred to sludge for disposal. On the other hand, P is an irreplaceable essential element for all living organisms and its resource (phosphate rock) is estimated about 100 years of economical mining. Therefore, P and N recovery from waste and wastewater is a critical issue for sustainable human society. For the purpose, intensive researches have been carried out to remove and recover P and N from waste and wastewater. Previous studies have shown that biochars can adsorb and desorbed phosphates implying that biochars could be a complementary fertilizer. However, most of the conventional biochar have limited capacity to adsorb phosphates and nitrate. Recent studies have focused on biochar impregnated with metal salts to improve phosphates and nitrate adsorption by synthesizing biochars with novel structures and surface properties. Metal salts and metal oxides have been used for the surface modification of biochars. If P removal is the only concern, P adsorption kinetics and capacity are the only important factors. If both of P and N removal and the application of recovery are concerned, however, P and N desorption characteristics and bioavailability are also critical factors to be considered. Most of the researches on impregnated biochars have focused on P removal efficiency and kinetics. In this study, coffee waste is thermally treated to produce biochar and it was impregnated with Mg/Al to enhance phosphates and nitrate adsorption/desorption and P bioavailability to increase its value as a fertilizer. Kinetics of phosphates and nitrate adsorption/desorption and bioavailability analysis were carried out to estimate its potential as a P and N removal adsorbent in wasewater and a fertilizer in soil.

• Analytical Science and Technology
• /
• v.20 no.1
• /
• pp.1-9
• /
• 2007

The BOD (biochemical oxygen demand) sensor was fabricated by covering a dissolved oxygen (DO) probe with a microbe-impregnated membrane and a dialysis membrane. Various microorganisms isolated from the soils, water and activated sludge have been evaluated for measuring biochemical oxygen demand (BOD); Bacillus species HN24 and HN93 were selected as they exhibited rapid oxygen consumption and fast recovery. Improved BOD sensor could be prepared by using mixed microbes (Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus sp. HN24 and Bacillus sp. NH93) and silicon rubber gas-permeable membrane for DO probe, and by bubbling 50% $O_2$ ($N_2$ valence) through background buffer solution. This system exhibited excellent analytical performance resulting in good linearity ($r^2=0.9986$) from 0 to 100 mg/L level of BOD.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
• /
• v.31 no.4
• /
• pp.5-11
• /
• 2023

This study was conducted to improve energy efficiency and problems such as clumping and fouling in the glue zone that occur in the moisture content range of 40 to 60% when sewage dehydration residue is directly fed into the dryer. The temperature of the hot air is low at 270~300℃, and the paddle-type flotation method and dehydrated residue are applied to the circulated heat storage media to increase the contact area with the hot air, thereby reducing energy recovery and gas emissions. The water content of the dried residue is 2.7. ~7 .5%, the heat of evaporation of moisture was 608.0~690.6 kcal/kg·H₂O, which confirmed an energy saving effect of about 8.8% compared to the heat of evaporation of moisture of 714.5 kcal/kg·H₂O when no heat storage media was used.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.59-66
• /
• 2024

This study evaluated the performance of a membrane aerated biofilm reactor (MABR) for nitrogen removal from a high-strength ammonia nitrogen-containing wastewater. The experimental setup consisted of four compartments that are sequentially anaerobic and aerobic to achieve complete nitrogen removal. The last compartment of the reactor setup contained a membrane bioreactor (MBR) to reduce sludge production in the system and to obtain a better-quality effluent. Continuous experiment over a period of 47 days showed that MABR exhibited excellent NH₄⁺-N removal efficiency (99.5%) compared to the control setup without MABR (56.5%). The final effluent NH₄⁺-N concentration obtained in the MABR was 2.99±1.56 mg/L. In contrast to NH₄⁺-N removal, comparable TOC removal values in the MABR and the control reactor (99.2% and 99.3%, respectively) showed that air supply through MABR is much more critical for denitrification than for organic removal. Further study to understand the effect of air supply rate and holding pressure on NH₄⁺-N removal in MABR revealed that an increase in both these parameters positively impacted reactor performance. These parameters are related to oxygen supply to the biofilm formed over the membrane surface, which in turn influenced NH₄⁺-N removal in MABR. Among the two different strategies to control biofilm over the membrane surface, results showed that scouring for a duration of 10 min on a weekly basis, along with mixing air supply, could be an effective method.

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
• /
• v.4 no.4
• /
• pp.388-395
• /
• 2016

This paper explores the photocatalytic sensitivity of cement mortar incorporated with recycled $TiO_2$ from waste water sludge. Basically, $TiO_2$ cluster sank down slowly to the bottom of cement mortar specimen before setting and hardening process. This leads the mismatch of $TiO_2$ concentration on the top and the bottom faces of a specimen. This poorly dispersed $TiO_2$-cement mortar naturally exhibits poor NOx removal efficiency especially on the top of cementitious structure. In architectural engineering application such as building or housing structures, one can simply filp over from the bottom so that more $TiO_2$ concentrated surface can be placed outward into the air. However, in highway pavement case, this could not be applicable due to in-situ installation of concrete pavement. Hence, the dispersion of $TiO_2$ cluster inside the cementitous material is getting important issue onto road construction application. To elaborate this issue, according to our results, silica fume, high-ranged water reducer, viscosity agent, blast furnace slag were not enhanced much of dispersion characteristics of $TiO_2$ cluster. The combination of foaming agent and accelerator of hardening with viscosity agent and small grain size of fine aggregate may help the dispersion of $TiO_2$ inside cementitious materials. Even though the enhanced dispersion were applied to the specimen, NOx removal efficiency doest not change much for the top surface of the specimen. This concurrently affected by the presence of tiny air voids and the dispersion of $TiO_2$ in that these voids could easily adsorbed NOx gas with the aid of large surface area.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
• /
• v.31 no.4
• /
• pp.351-358
• /
• 2012

BACKGROUND: Constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment are vegetated by wetland plants. Wetland plants are an important component of wetlands, and the plants have several roles in relation to the livestock wastewater treatment processes. The objectives of this study were to investigate the growth characteristics and nutrient absorption of water plants in constructed wetlands for treating livestock wastewater. METHODS AND RESULTS: In this study, livestock wastewater treatment plant by constructed wetlands consisted of $1^{st}$ water plant filtration bed, $2^{nd}$ activated sludge bed, $3^{rd}$ vertical flow(VF), $4^{th}$ horizontal flow(HF) and $5^{th}$ HF beds. Phragmites communis TRINIUS(PHRCO) was transplanted in $3^{rd}$ VF bed, Iris pseudoacorus L(IRIPS) was transplanted in $4^{th}$ HF bed and PHRCO, IRIPS and Typha orientalis PRESEL(THYOR) were transplanted in $5^{th}$ HF. Growth of water plants in constructed wetlands were the highest in October. The IRIPS growth was higher than other plant as 264 g/plant in October. The absorption of nitrogen and phosphorus by IRIS were 3.38 g/plant and 0.634 g/plant, respectively. The absorption of K, Ca, Mg, Na, Fe, Mn, Cu and Zn by water plants were higher in the order of IRIPS > THYOR > PHRCO. CONCLUSION(S): The absorption of nutrients by water plants were higher on the order of IRIPS > THYOR > PHRCO in constructed wetlands for treating livestock wastewater.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2016.02a
• /
• pp.251-251
• /
• 2016

For several decades, industrial processes consume a huge amount of raw water for various objects that consequently results in the generation of large amounts of wastewater. Wastewaters are consisting of complex mixture of different inorganic and organic compounds and some of them can be toxic, hazardous and hard to degrade. These effluents are mainly treated by conventional technologies such are aerobic and anaerobic treatment and chemical coagulation. But, these processes are not suitable for eliminating all hazardous chemical compounds form wastewater and generate a large amount of toxic sludge. Therefore, other processes have been studied and applied together with these techniques to enhance purification results. These include photocatalysis, absorption, advanced oxidation processes, and ozonation, but also have their own drawbacks. In recent years, electrochemical techniques have received attention as wastewater treatment process that could be show higher purification results. Among them, boron doped diamond (BDD) attract attention as electrochemical electrode due to good chemical and electrochemical stability, long lifetime and wide potential window that necessary properties for anode electrode. So, there are many researches about high quality BDD on Nb, Ta, W and Si substrates, but, their application in effluents treatment is not suitable due to high cost of metal and low conductivity of Si. To solve these problems, Ti has been candidate as substrate in consideration of cost and property. But there are adhesion issues that must be overcome to apply Ti as BDD substrate. Al, Cu, Ti and Nb thin films were deposited on Ti substrate to improve adhesion between substrate and BDD thin film. In this paper, BDD films were deposited by hot filament chemical vapor deposition (HF-CVD) method. Prior to deposition, cleaning processes were conducted in acetone, ethanol, and isopropyl alcohol (IPA) using sonification machine for 7 min, respectively. And metal layer with the thickness of 200 nm were deposited by DC magnetron sputtering (DCMS). To analyze microstructure X-ray diffraction (XRD, Bruker gads) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM, Hitachi) were used. It is confirmed that metal layer was effective to adhesion property and improved electrode property. Electrochemical measurements were carried out in a three electrode electrochemical cell containing a 0.5 % H2SO4 in deionized water. As a result, it is confirmed that metal inter layer heavily effect on BDD property by improving adhesion property due to suppressing formation of titanium carbide.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
• /
• v.33 no.4
• /
• pp.231-236
• /
• 2011

The effects of magnesium and calcium ions on phosphorus removal by aluminium coagulation were investigated with various jar tests using settled raw sewage. Maximum TP (total phosphate) removal occurred at pH around 5~6 with aluminium coagulation, and it decreased above pH 6. TP and $H_nPO_4^{n-3}$ removal efficiencies, however, were kept above 95% at pH above 6 by adding the divalent metallic ions like magnesium or calcium ions on aluminium coagulation process. At molar ratio of Al/P ($Al^{3+}/H_nPO_4^{n-3}$) above 3, TP removal efficiency was as high as 80%, and residual TP less than 0.2 mg/L occurred at Al/P ratio above 6. TP removal efficiency was improved by adding magnesium or calcium ions and the optimum $Al^{3+}/Mg^{2+}$ and $Al^{3+}/Ca^{2+}$ ratios were about 2. The required dose of aluminium coagulant was reduced for equivalent amount of TP removal by adding magnesium or calcium ions, as a result sludge generation was also reduced.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
• /
• v.24 no.1
• /
• pp.31-40
• /
• 2016

In this study, mesophilic anaerobic digestion of source separated food waste was carried out by leachate recirculation system and methane gas was produced. Two systems - system A and B were fabricated and placed within water bath to maintain $36^{\circ}C$. Each system was comprised of an anaerobic bioreactor and a leachate tank. Leachate in bioreactor was separated through the screen located at 30 mm above the bottom and a pump was installed to transfer collected leachate to the leachate tank. Everyday, 2.5 L of the leachate was pumped from the bioreactor to the leachate tank for 30 min and transferred leachate was pumped back to the top of the bioreactor for 30min, sequentially. Source separated food waste used for this experiment was washed by water before transferring to the laboratory. Transferred food waste was warmed to $36^{\circ}C$ before being fed to bioreactors. System A was fed to 49.1 g VS (Volatile Solids) and System B was fed to 54.0 g VS at every two weeks, respectively. $NH_4{^+}-N$ and salinity were monitored to see the inhibition toward anaerobic bioreaction and it was found that concentrations of these materials were not high enough to affect the bioreaction. Although the food waste was fed biweekly for 112 days and 140 days at system A and B, respectively, there was no sludge withdrawal from each system. Average methane productions rates were 0.439 L $CH_4/g$ VS and 0.368 L $CH_4/g$ VS for system A and B, respectively.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
• /
• v.29 no.3
• /
• pp.303-311
• /
• 1996

The microflora changes of 10 water-controled treatments combined with livestock manures(pig, chicken) and bulking agents(sawdust, paper sludge) were investigated. The B/F values of the P-1 and C-1(65%, $H_2O$) treatments were 3571 and 5400 respectively, but those of the P-4 and C-4(50%, $H_2O$) treatments showed very low values, 667 and 334, respectively. The B/F values tended to increase with higher water content of the treatments. In the composting processes, the successions of microflora, adapting the compost environments, took place via fluctuating temperature. In the high temperature period, the numbers of mesophilic bacteria and fungi decreased, but that of the spore forming bacteria increased. However, the number of mesophilic bacteria inereased during the cold period. The B/F values of compost ranged 25-300, which indicates a decrease in the quantity of bacteria. The time required for the temperature of compost to reach $60^{\circ}C$ showed different patterns. There was no pathogenic microorganism in the treatments which reached a high temperature in a short period of time, but, in the treatments which reached a high temperature over a Long period of time, the pathgenic microorganism was not still alive.