• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
• /
• v.29 no.3
• /
• pp.132-139
• /
• 2019

EPS (expanded polystyrene) is one of the most used building materials for insulation that is favored by its excellent heat insulation, economical efficiency and lightweight characteristics. However, EPS is vulnerable to the fire and producing large amount of toxic gases in case of fire. Therefore, ultra-lightweight geopolymer which can replace EPS is fabricated by using IGCC (integrated gasification combined cycle) fused slag and Si sludge as raw materials and the possibility of replacement on ultra-lightweight geopolymer for EPS as an insulation building material was evaluated in this study. Ultra-lightweight geopolymer can be fabricated with the pulverized IGCC fused slag having low carbon content and density, compressive strength, thermal conductivity were $0.064g/cm^3$, 0.04 MPa, and 0.072 W/mK, respectively. The thermal conductivity of ultra-lightweight geopolymer is 1.5~2.0 times higher than that of EPS suggested in the KS M 3808; however, the thermal conductivity value of geopolymer is meaningful and competitive to that of EPS in the market. Therefore, ultralightweight geopolymer can be applicable to the building material for thermal insulation purpose and have an enough possibility to replace EPS in the future because it is not only much safer than EPS in case of fire but also it can be fabricate by using waste materials from the industry.

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.26-32
• /
• 2021

Powder type sericite has been actively researched in the area of chemistry and mineralogy in terms of waste recycling. It is a material that can be obtained relatively inexpensively with a low thermal conductivity like general mica, so in order to improve the thermal conductivity of the mortar, powder type sericite was used in this work. Compressive strengths of mortar before and after high temperature exposure were compared and evaluated to determine the fire resistance of mortar with powder type sericite. According to the experimental results, it was found that the compressive strength decreased when powder type sericite was replaced with cement, but the decrease in compressive strength with the increasing amount of powder type sericite was insignificant. When powder type sericite was incorporated, the thermal conductivity decreased, and the residual strengths of the mortar specimens which were heat treated at 600℃, 900℃, and 1,200℃ were higher than that of plain mortar. From the comprehensive evaluation of the experimental results, it can be concluded that the powder type sericite has the potential to be used as a refractory material for cement composites.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.22 no.5
• /
• pp.1-6
• /
• 2021

Mercury, once released, is not destroyed but accumulates and circulates in the natural environment, causing serious harm to ecosystems and human health. In the United States, sulfur-impregnated activated carbon is being considered for the removal of vapor mercury from the flue gas of coal-fired power plants, which accounts for about 32 % of the anthropogenic emissions of mercury. In this study, a high-efficiency porous mercury adsorption material was developed to reduce the mercury vapor in the exhaust gas of coal combustion facilities, and the mercury adsorption characteristics of the material were investigated. As a result of the investigation of the vapor mercury adsorption capacity at 30℃, the silica nanotube MCM-41 was only about 35 % compared to the activated carbon Darco FGD commercially used for mercury adsorption, but it increased to 133 % when impregnated with 1.5 % sulfur. In addition, the furnace fly ash recovered from the waste copper regeneration process showed an efficiency of 523 %. Furthermore, the adsorption capacity was investigated at temperatures of 30 ℃, 80 ℃, and 120 ℃, and the best adsorption performance was found to be 80 ℃. MCM-41 is a silica nanotube that can be reused many times due to its rigid structure and has additional advantages, including no possibility of fire due to the formation of hot spots, which is a concern when using activated carbon.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.38 no.12
• /
• pp.113-123
• /
• 2022

The required density relationship according to the press pressure of the floating die method and the homogeneity of the density distribution in the buffer block was evaluated to analyze the manufacturing characteristics of engineering scale bentonite-sand buffer blocks. In addition, the thermal conductivity was measured and compared with that of the pure bentonite buffer block to evaluate the level of thermal conductivity performance improvement of the bentonite-sand buffer material. As a result, it was confirmed that the standard deviation of dry density decreased to 0.011 and showed a homogeneous density distribution under the condition of press pressure greater than 400 kg/cm². Furthermore, as a result of the thermal conductivity test, the thermal conductivity of the buffer with optimum moisture content conditions was 1.345 and 1.261 W/(m·K) under the press pressure of 400 and 600 kg/cm², respectively. It increased by 16.1% and 11.0% compared to the pure bentonite buffer material. Based on the results of this study, it is judged that it can be used as fundamental data for manufacturing a homogeneous bentonite-sand buffer block on an engineering scale.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF PACKAGING SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
• /
• v.28 no.3
• /
• pp.201-210
• /
• 2022

Expanded polystyrene (EPS) is the most commonly used fresh food refrigeration insulation in Korea and Europe. Moreover, as the use of disposable packaging materials has increased significantly along with non-face-to-face delivery services since the COVID-19 crisis, social issues related to waste disposal are also being raised. Therefore, in this study, the life cycle of EPS boxes for fresh food is focused on the factors that have a large difference between incineration and landfill including recycling in Europe and Korea in the disposal process after use, and raw materials and energy in the manufacturing process, which account for a large portion of the environmental impact value. We tried to compare the environmental impact of evaluation. Overall, the raw material production stage, box manufacturing stage, and packaging stage have similar processes in Europe and Korea, but unlike Europe, Korea, which lacks landfills and incineration facilities, has focused on expanding the recycling rate. It was necessary to do an environmental impact assessment. Data affecting the environment were derived based on 2019 and 2020 data for Korea and 2017 and 2020 data for Europe. In order to predict the future environmental impact assessment, assumptions about the disposal rate in 2025 and 2030 were introduced and evaluated. As a result of this study, it was found that the raw material production stage of EPS boxes, which have similar processes in both Korea and Europe, has the greatest effect on the global warming effect of Korean EPS boxes. However, Korea, which has a relatively high recycling rate in the disposal process compared to incineration and landfill, showed better environmental performance than Europe in most impact indicators except freshwater eutrophication. In particular, Korea has increased the overall recycling rate compared to Europe by replacing various recyclable materials such as building materials and sundries with XPS (extruded polystyrene) recycled materials. In conclusion, it was found that increasing the recycling rate rather than incinerating and landfilling EPS boxes for fresh food in the domestic EPS industry has relatively less environmental load compared to Europe.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF PACKAGING SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
• /
• v.28 no.1
• /
• pp.1-8
• /
• 2022

With the spread of COVID-19 worldwide, non-face-to-face services have grown rapidly, but at the same time, the problem of plastic waste is getting worse. Accordingly, eco-friendly policies such as carbon neutrality and sustainable circular economy are being promoted worldwide. Due to the high demand for eco-friendly products, the packaging industry is trying to develop eco-friendly packaging materials using PLA and PBAT and create new business models. On the other hand, Ulva australis occurs in large quantities in the southern seas of Korea and off the coast of Jeju Island, causing marine environmental problems. In this study, lactic acid was produced through dilute acid pretreatment, enzymatic saccharification, and fermentation processes to utilize Ulva australis as a new alternative energy raw material. In general, seaweeds vary in carbohydrate content and sugar composition depending on the species, harvest location, and time. Seaweed is mainly composed of polysaccharides such as cellulose, alginate, mannan, and xylan, but does not contain lignin. It is difficult to expect high extraction yield of the complex polysaccharide constituting Ulva australis with only one process. However, the fusion process of dilute acid and enzymatic saccharification presented in this study can extract most of the sugars contained in Ulva australis. Therefore, the fusion process is considered to be able to expect high lactic acid production yield when a commercial-scale production process is established.

• Composites Research
• /
• v.36 no.4
• /
• pp.281-287
• /
• 2023

Environmental pollution from waste and the climate crisis, due to rising global average temperatures, are reaching critical levels threatening human survival. Research is ongoing across various fields to solve this problem, with a key focus on developing eco-friendly, carbon-neutral materials. Our study aimed to integrate natural fibers, known for their environmentally friendly properties and lower carbon emissions, with carbon fibers. In general, combining high-strength and low-strength materials results in intermediate properties. However, we found that certain properties in our study exceeded those of typical carbon fiber composite materials. To validate this, we produced both carbon fiber composite materials and carbon fiber/natural fiber hybrid composite materials. We then compared their mechanical properties using a range of specific tests. Our results revealed that the hybrid composite material exhibited superior bending strength and fracture toughness compared to the carbon fiber composite material. We also identified the underlying mechanisms contributing to this strength enhancement. This breakthrough suggests that the use of hybrid composite materials may allow the production of stronger structures. Moreover, this can play a significant role in mitigating environmental pollution and the climate crisis by reducing carbon emissions, a major contributing factor to these global challenges.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
• /
• v.31 no.1
• /
• pp.5-14
• /
• 2023

In this study, LiDAR-reflective black hollow-structured silica/titania(B-HST) materials are successfully synthesized by employing the NaBH₄ reduction and etching method on silica/titania core/shell(STCS) materials, which also effectively enhance near-infrared(NIR) reflectance. Moreover, core-etched supernatant solutions are collected and recycled for the synthesis of extracted silica(e-SiO₂) process, which successfully applies as filler materials for semiconductor epoxy molding compound(EMC). In detail, B-HST materials, fabricated by the sequential experimental steps of sol-gel, reduction, and sonication-mediated etching method, manifest blackness(L^*) of 13.2 similar to black paint and excellent NIR reflectance(31.1%). Consequently, B-HST materials are successfully prepared as LiDAR-reflective black materials. Additionally, core-etched supernatant solution with silanol precursors are employed for synthesis of homogeneous silica filler materials via sol-gel method. As-synthesized silica fillers are incorporated with epoxy resin and carbon black for the preparation of semiconductor EMC. Experimentally synthesized EMC exhibits comparable mechanical-chemical properties to commercial EMC. Conclusively, this study successfully proposes designing procedure and practical experimental method for simultaneously synthesizing the NIR-reflective black materials for self-driving vehicles and EMC materials for semiconductors, which are materials suitable for the industrial 4.0 era, and presented their applicability in future industries.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.43 no.1
• /
• pp.71-77
• /
• 2023

With the continuous industrial development, not only natural resource depletion, waste generation, but also various weather conditions are becoming more frequent. Efforts are continuing to recycle industrial by-products to overcome the climate crisis and save resources. Slag is a representative by-product generated in the steel industry, and it is characterized by improving rutting resistance and moisture sensitivity by increasing strength and reducing deformation when used as a material for asphalt concrete. On the other hand, slag has expansion properties so it is used as a relatively low-value-added material such as embankment and refilling materials. In order to expand the application of slag, an experiment was conducted to evaluate the crack resistance of slag asphalt concrete pavement. As a result of the indirect tensile strength test, it was found that the asphalt mixture using slag aggregate showed a value 1.13 times higher than that of the general HMA with the same particle size, and the toughness was 1.17 units, improving crack resistance. In addition, it was found that the failure number of the 4-point beam fatigue experiment and the slag asphalt mixture was 20,409, which was more than doubled compared to the general HMA. Furthermore, Overlay Test showed a tensile load residual rate of 4 times or more, improving crack resistance to repeated fatigue. Accordingly, the use of slag aggregate will likely have various advantages in improving the performance of asphalt concrete pavement.

• Resources Recycling
• /
• v.12 no.6
• /
• pp.38-46
• /
• 2003

In this study, nano-sized Ni-ferrite and $Fe_2$$O_3$＋NiO powder was fabricated by spray pyrolysis process in the condition of 1kg/$\textrm{cm}^2$ air pressure using the Fe-Ni complex waste acid solution generated during the manufacturing process of shadow mask. The average particle size of the produced powder was below 100 nm. The effects of the reaction temperature, the concentration of raw material solution and the nozzle tip size on the properties of powder were studied. As the reaction temperature increased from $800 ^{\circ}C$ to $1100^{\circ}C$, the average particle size of the powder increased from 40 nm to 100 nm, the structure of the powder gradually became solid, yet the distribution of the particle size appeared more irregular. Along with the increase of the reaction temperature, the fraction of the Ni-ferrite phase were also on the rise, and the surface area of the powder was greatly reduced. As the concentration of Fe in solution increased from 20g/l to 200g/l, the average particle size of the powder gradually increased from 30 nm to 60 nm, while the distribution of the particle size appeared more irregular. Along with the increase of the concentration of solution, tie fraction of the Ni-ferrite phase was on the rise, and the surface area of the powder was greatly reduced. Along with the increase of the nozzle tip size, the distribution of the particle size appeared more irregular, yet the average particle size of the powder showed no significant change. As the nozzle tip size increased from 1 mm to 2 mm, the fraction of the Ni-ferrite phase showed no significant change, while the surface area of the powder slightly reduced. As the nozzle tip size increased to 3 mm and 5 mm, the fraction of the Ni-ferrite phase gradually reduced, and the surface area of the powder slightly increased.