• Journal of Life Science
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.54-60
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• 2014

Aromatic hydrocarbons are toxic environmental pollutants that are detrimental to the ecosystem and human health. Among them, chlorotoluene and nitrotoluene are toxic to hydrobios and irritate the skin, eyes, and respiratory organs of humans. We herein report the development of recombinant microbial biosensors for cheap and rapid monitoring of chlorotoluene and nitrotoluene compounds. Plasmids were constructed by inserting the xylR regulatory gene for BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene) degradation into upstream of Po' (the DmpR activator promoter Po with the deletion of its own upstream activating sequences) or Pu (the cognate promoter of XylR)::lacZ (the ${\beta}$-galactosidase gene) and transformed into Escherichia coli $DH5{\alpha}$. In the presence of inducers, the biosensor cells immobilized in agarose developed a red color in 1-2 h due to the hydrolysis of chlorophenol red ${\beta}$-D-galactopyranoside (CPRG), a substrate of ${\beta}$-galactosidase that was expressed by the inducers. Among BTEX, high responses were specifically observed with o-, m-, p-chlorotoluene ($0.1{\mu}M-100 mM$) and o-, m-, p-nitrotoluene (0.1 mM-100 mM). Po' demonstrated higher responses than those with Pu. The biosensors immobilized in agarose showed good stability after 21 days' storage at $4^{\circ}C$, and responses in untreated wastewater spiked with chlorotoluene and nitrotoluene, suggesting they can be used to detect compounds in wastewater.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.73-80
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• 2007

This study was carried out to separate the heavy toxic metals in eco-building materials by low-temperature pyrolysis, especially arsenic (As) compounds in CCA wood preservative as a solid in char. The pyrolysis was carried out to heat the CCA-treated Hemlock at $280^{\circ}C$, $300^{\circ}C$, $320^{\circ}C$, and $340^{\circ}C$ for 60 mins. Laboratory scale pyrolyzer composed of [preheater$\rightarrow$pyrolyzer$\rightarrow$1st water scrubber$\rightarrow$2nd bubbling flask with 1% $HNO_3$ solution$\rightarrow$vent], and was operated to absorb the volatile metal compound particulates at the primary water scrubber and the secondary nitric acid bubbling flask with cooling condenser of $4^{\circ}C$ under nitrogen stream of 20 mL/min flow rate. And the contents of copper, chromium and arsenic compounds in its pyrolysis such as carbonized CCA treated wood, 1st washing and 2nd washing liquors as well as its raw materials, were determined using ICP-AES. The results are as follows : 1. The yield of char in low-temperature pyrolysis reached about 50 percentage similar to the result of common pyrolytic process. 2. The higher the pyrolytic temperature was, the more the volatiles of CCA, and in particular, the arsenic compounds were to be further more volatile above $320^{\circ}C$, even though the more repetitive and sequential monitorings were necessary. 3. More than 85 percentage of CCA in CCA-treated wood was left in char in such low-temperature pyrolytic condition at $300^{\circ}C$. 4. Washing system for absorption of volatile CCA in this experiment required much more contacting time between volatile gases and water to prevent the loss of CCA compounds, especially the loss of arsenic compound. 5. Therefore, more complete recovery of CCA components in CCA-treated wood required the lower temperature than $320^{\circ}C$, and the longer contacting time of volatile gases and water needed the special washing and recovery system to separate the toxic and volatile arsenic compounds in vent gases.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.18-25
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• 2003

In order to know the effects of PCB(Arochlor 1248) on the oocyte maturation and proges-terone(P$_4$) production by FPH(Frog pituitary homogenate: 0.01 p.e/$m\ell$) of frog in vitro, the oocytes were cultured for 20 hours in presence of the PCB at various concentrations and exam-ined their maturation(germinal vesicle breakdown: GVBD) rates and P$_4$ levels secreted by the oocyte in the culture medium. The results show that PCB concentration of 10 ppb suppressed the maturation of the oocytes and secretion of P$_4$. To examine the reversibility of the inhibitory effects, the oocytes were exposed to the PCB only for 3 hours, and then transferred to plain medium and cultured further for 17 hours. The oocytes were recovered from the toxic effect of the PCB when they were exposed to 2.5 ppb, but not to 5 ppb of the PCB. These results indi-cate that PCB suppress the maturation of oocytes and secretion of p, at low concentration, sug-gesting that the frog oocyte culture system can be used as a useful tool to evaluate the toxicity of the pollutants in the environment.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.39 no.7
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• pp.513-523
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• 1995

Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and dibenzofurans (PCDFs) are the most concerned toxic organic pollutants to human. Because of their extremely high toxicity and uncertain genotoxic potential, their determination in environmental and biological samples is of great interest. Municipal solid waste incinerator facilities have been reported as the major contributors of dioxins and furans to the environment, and their formation from combustion is a universal phenomenon, everywhere. In this study dioxins and furans were analyzed from the bottom ash produced during combustion in an municipal waste incinerator located in Seoul. The EPA method was modified for sample pretreatment: the soxhlet method was used for extraction and clean-up procedures were performed by using silica and basic alumina, excluding active-carbon. The extract was then analyzed by HRGC/HRMS. A general trend of increase in the amounts of 6∼7 chlorine-substituted dioxins and furans was observed. Total dioxins, furans and 2,3,7,8-TCDD were determined as 8.05 ng/g, 4.75 ng/g, and 6.93 pg/g, respectively.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.553-573
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• 2013

This paper aims to give a summary and review of the research trend about subjects of Asian Dust (AD) storm in the last three decades. The AD research was focused on classification of synoptic scale data and finding inflow pathway in early stage. Recently, new approaches have been made to explain chemical composition, transportation, transboundary movement reaction of AD, using satellite data, 3D modeling, the aerosol time of flight mass spectroscopy, etc. During AD events, a large amount of dust particles flow into Korea and Japan from AD source areas, and they are highly likely to be mixed with toxic substances when air mass contained AD particles pass over seriously polluted areas. We concluded that, considering that AD events were classified into two cases according to the source area and pathway, the concentrations of crustal components did not increase at the initial stage of AD events, Whereas ammonium-sulfate, trace metal element, OC, EC relatively increased in the early stage. This explains AD events have the possibility of being accompanied with polluted air mass or particles. Also, we further need to compare and summarize the results of AD studies which already have been conducted, and prepare strategies for particle management, particularly for Black Carbon (BC) and Brown Carbon (BrC) which are considered to induce climate change effects.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.792-796
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• 2003

Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) are extremely toxic and persistent environmental pollutants. Their chemical reactivities and other physicochemical/biological properties show a strong dependence on the chlorination pattern. With increasing the number of chlorines, dioxin congeners become more electronegative and gain higher electron affinities. The vertical electron affinities (VEA) are related with the LUMO energies of neutral molecules. LUMO energies of all PCDD congeners were calculated at the B3LYP/6-31G** level and those of some selected congeners at the level of B3LYP/6-311G**//B3LYP/6-31G** and B3LYP/cc-pvtz/ /B3LYP/6-31G**. The total energies of neutral and anionic species for dibenzo-p-dioxins (DD), 1469-TCDD, 2378-TCDD, and OCDD were calculated at the level of B3LYP/6-31G**, B3LYP/aug-cc-pvdz, and B3LYP/ aug-cc-pvtz//B3LYP/6-31G**. By using the four congeners with D2h symmetry as reference molecules, we could estimate VEA (B3LYP/aug-cc-pvdz) of 75 PCDD congeners based on the linear correlations between LUMO energy and VEA (B3LYP/6-31G**) and between VEA (B3LYP/6-31G**) and VEA (B3LYP/aug-ccpvtz// B3LYP/6-31G**). Results show that all PCDDs with the number of Cl ≥ 3 have positive electron affinities. The PCDD electron affinity values provided in this work can be a useful data set in understanding the congener-specific reactivities of dioxins in various environmental media.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.41 no.11
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• pp.318-327
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• 2017

Background: A typical sewage treatment plant is designed for organic and nutrient removal from municipal sewage water and not targeted to eliminate micropollutants such as pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and nano-sized metals which become a big concern for sustainable human and ecological system and are mainly discharged from sewage treatment plant. Therefore, despite contaminant removal by wastewater treatment processes, there are still remaining environmental risks by untreated pollutants in STP (sewage treatment plant) effluents. This study performed aquatic toxicity tests of raw wastewater and treated effluents in two sewage treatment plants to evaluate toxicity reduction by wastewater treatment process and analyze concentration of contaminants to reveal potential toxic factors in STP effluents. Methods: Water samples were collected from each treatment steps of two STPs, and acute and chronic toxicity tests were conducted following USEPA (United States Environmental Protection Agency) and OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) guidelines. Endpoints were immobility for mortality and reproduction effect for estrogenicity. Results: Acute $EC_{50}s$ (median effective concentration) of influents for Seungki (SK) and Jungnang (JN) STPs are $54.13{\pm}32.64%$ and $30.38{\pm}24.96%$, respectively, and reduced to $96.49{\pm}7.84%$ and 100%. Acute toxicity reduction was clearly correlated with SS (suspended solids) concentration because of filter feeding characteristics of test organisms. Chronic toxicity tests revealed that lethal effect was reduced and low concentration of influents showed higher number of neonates. However, toxicity reduction was not related to nutrient removal. Fecundity effect positively increased in treated wastewater compared to that in raw wastewater, and no significant differences were observed compared to the control group in JN final effluent implying potential effects of estrogenic compounds in the STP effluents. Conclusions: Conventional wastewater treatment process reduced some organics and nutritional compounds from wastewater, and it results in toxicity reduction in lethal effect and positive reproductive effect but not showing correlation. Unknown estrogenic compounds could be a reason causing the increase of brood size. This study suggests that pharmaceutical residues and nanoparticles in STP effluents are one of the major micropollutants and underline as one of estrogenic effect factors.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.276-287
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• 2013

Domestic sewage contains increasingly more pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), due to rising use of medicines, health supplement food and daily necessities. And various types of industrial wastewater from pollution sources in treatment areas could flow into the public sewerage treatment plants (PSTPs) in metropolitan areas. The conventional PSTPs are designed to treat suspended solids, biodegradable organics, nitrogen and phosphorous from residential and industrial areas and public facilities. However, toxic, conventional, and non-coventional pollutants from non-domestic sources that discharge into sewer system as well as domestic source with various chemicals could not be treated in the conventional PSTPs and discharged untreated to public basin. In this paper we aim to consider the establishment system of effluent standard of PSTPs in comparison with water quality standard of water environment and wastewater discharge regulation. And also we suggest the necessity of regulations on the pretreatment of industrial wastewater as part of efforts to improve water quality in sewerage systems and to protect public basin.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.391-407
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• 2013

Micropollutants emerge in surface water through untreated discharge from sewage and wastewater treatment plants (STPs and WWTPs). Most micropollutants resist the conventional systems in place at water treatment plants (WTPs) and survive the production of tap water. In particular, pharmaceuticals and endocrine disruptors (ECDs) are micropollutants frequently detected in drinking water. In this review, we summarized the distribution of micropollutants at WTPs and also scrutinized the effectiveness and mechanisms for their removal at each stage of drinking water production. Micropollutants demonstrated clear concentrations in the final effluents of WTPs. Although chronic exposure to micropollutants in drinking water has unclear adverse effects on humans, peer reviews have argued that continuous accumulation in water environments and inappropriate removal at WTPs has the potential to eventually affect human health. Among the available removal mechanisms for micropollutants at WTPs, coagulation alone is unlikely to eliminate the pollutants, but ionized compounds can be adsorbed to natural particles (e.g. clay and colloidal particles) and metal salts in coagulants. Hydrophobicities of micropollutants are a critical factor in adsorption removal using activated carbon. Disinfection can reduce contaminants through oxidation by disinfectants (e.g. ozone, chlorine and ultraviolet light), but unidentified toxic byproducts may result from such treatments. Overall, the persistence of micropollutants in a treatment system is based on the physico-chemical properties of chemicals and the operating conditions of the processes involved. Therefore, monitoring of WTPs and effective elimination process studies for pharmaceuticals and ECDs are required to control micropollutant contamination of drinking water.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.565-571
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• 2012

This study was conducted to investigate the tolerance of some resistant fungal strains from soils contaminated with heavy metals. Various fungal strains were isolated from soil samples collected from studied sites which heavy metals and other pollutants have been emitted in effluents for several years. Fungi isolated belong to different genera; however, Penicillium spp. showed the most frequent species. The microbial number was remarkably higher in the control soil than contaminated soil samples collected from mining areas. $Pb^{2+}$ and $Zn^{2+}$ had the highest concentration in the polluted soils ranging from 89 - 3,521 ppm and 98 - 4,383 ppm, respectively. The minimum inhibition concentrations (MICs) of $Pb^{+2}$ and $Zn^{+2}$ showed the highest values against the fungal strains. $Ni^{+2}$ and $Co^{+2}$ were the lowest contaminants in the polluted soils with the concentration of 5 to 12.1 ppm and 1.8 to 4.8 ppm, respectively. The tested resistant strains showed the strongest inhibition for $Ni^{+2}$ and $Co^{+2}$ up to 200-400 ppm. Cadmium was the most highly toxic heavy metal for most of strains, however, 1 mM of $Cr^{3+}$, $Cu^{2+}$ and $Pb^{2+}$ accelerated the growth of Penicillium verrucosum KNU3. $Cu^{+2}$ and $Zn^{+2}$ at concentration of 1 mM did not affect the growth rate P. funiculosum KNU4. Tolerance of fungal species to heavy metals appears to be strain and origin dependent.