• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.110-116
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• 2016

Biogas yields point of view, the possibility of reusing excess sludge treated by thermal pretreatment for the purpose of improving the efficiency of the anaerobic digestion process has been investigated in recent year. Thermal pretreatment technology was considered as a pretreatment technique to improve excess sludge properties because of the solubilization of particulate organics. As a view point of sludge reduction and recycle, however, many researchers focused on the ability of particulate hydrolysis and COD solubilization under a high temperature, and few reports have addressed on the physical/chemical characteristics changing. This research was performed to evaluate the effects of a various temperature and chemical additives on carbon formation and fractionation in treated slurry from thermal pretreatment. Based on the results, it was revealed that oxidants injection and temperature changing have significantly caused the change of carbon fractions in slurry from thermal pretreament. Especially, it was considered that the efficiencies of particle hydrolysis increased with the increase of the reaction temperature. Low molecular weight(Mw < 350 g/mol) organic carbon formation increased with the increase of oxidants injection. It was expected that results of this research will provide an overview of the characteristics of thermal pretreatement for excess sludge reduction and recycle.

• Clean Technology
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.87-98
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• 2007

As the interest in environmental problems increased, the guideline of effluent qualities becomes strict and the amount of sludge produced from the wastewater treatment facilities steeply increased. The revised Korean acts prohibit the direct reclamation of the sludge exhausted in sewage treatment works from 2003, and the ocean dump of sludge will be also prohibited from 2012. Therefore, the sludge must be recycled, incinerated or composted. To properly perform the utilization and disposal operations, the establishment of well-defined procedures for the characterization of sludge by physical, chemical and biological method and setting up of guidelines for different treatment and disposal routes has become necessary. However, there have not been such standardized methods for sludge characterization in Korea. This review analyzes the present status of establishment and problems of sludge characterization method of Korea. Finally, it was proposed total 15 items of standardized characterization methods suitable to our country for proper sludge recycling and disposal, which was based on the more systematic standard methods of Germany (DIN 38414) and those of advanced nations.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.737-744
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• 2007

Recently, one of the most interesting topic in the field of wastewater treatment is the disposal of excess sludge. The new concept of excess sludge reduction with recirculation of solubilized sludge via effective microorganisms for cell disruption within the wastewater treatment process has been developed in this study. The alkalophiles for degradation of sludge cell wall were isolated as Exiguobacterium sp., which could be more effectively solubilized sludge in the anaerobic condition. The SCOD of solubilized excess sludge by Exiguobacterium sp. was up to about 2,000mg/L and average TN and TP concentration of solubilized component were 117mg/L and 58mg/L, respectively and C/N ratio was more than 17. To investigate the effects of solubilized sludge by alkalophiles on excess sludge reduction and nutrient removal efficiency, the pilot plant of $DF^{(S)}-MBR$ process, combined with membrane bioreactor and sludge solubilization tank, was operated. In the control run(without sludge solubilization), the daily sludge production was about 4.54 kgMLVSS/day. However, in the $DF^{(S)}-MBR$(with sludge solubilization), the daily sludge production was decreased to 1.39kgMLVSS/day. The effluent quality satisfied the effluent regulation in both cases. Furthermore, the $DF^{(S)}-MBR$ showed relatively better TN removal efficiency in spite of high influent loading. So we concluded that the solubilized excess sludge by alkalophiles was effectively degraded in the MBR process as the carbon source and 70% of sludge reduction efficiency can be achieved.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.575-579
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• 2007

Sludge disposal technology has been studied with many researchers since disposal of sewage sludge has been a social problem. The current technologies include incineration, carbonization, pyrolysis, landfilling and fertilization. However, all of these processes require a dry process, because sewage sludge with more than 80% high water content is difficult to be used as a raw material. This study has the purpose to establish the optimal operation conditions and the technology as changing the variables: kiln residence time, sludge load, dryer temperature, by using the previous study that is rotary kiln type dryer designed as a numerical simulation study. As the results, optimum conditions are determined as follows: kiln residence time, sludge load, dryer temperature are $62.5kg/m^3{\cdot}hr$, 26.2 min, $330^{\circ}C$, respectively. Content of water, drying efficiency, weight loss, volume loss show that the results are $10{\pm}2$, 88, 80, 60%, and the dried sludge is released by a dryer below 10 mm.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.47-53
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• 2014

Effective treatment and energy conversion technologies are necessary due to the ban of the dumping of organic waste including the sewage sludge. In this study, the kinetics of pyrolysis and combustion were derived in a TGA and thermobalance reactor, which is essential for thermal conversion of sewage sludge to energy. Three steps are shown for the pyrolysis in TGA and the different pre-exponential factors and activation energies are derived depending on the temperature range. Three models of gassolid reaction were applied to the reaction kinetics analysis for the combustion of sewage sludge char and shrinking core model was an appropriated model. Apparent activation energy and pre-exponential factor were evaluated and the effect of oxygen partial pressure was examined.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.28 no.11
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• pp.1154-1161
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• 2006

Air drying equipment was built as a device for reduction of dewatered cake from wastewater and waterworks sludge and to reproduce it by reusable matter. Dewatered cake was supplied into the air drying equipment which operated by air velocity of 80 m/sec, air rate 30 $m^3/min$ and air temperature of $40^{\circ}C$, and dried to produce the dried powder. The air drying equipment was composed of the air ejector which made high-speed fluid field, and cyclone which made circling fluid field. Dewatered cake was crushed at the high-speed zone as first step, and formed into dried powder of sphere shape by the collision between particles at the circling fluid zone.. Wastewater sludge with water content of 82.5 wt% was supplied 1.0 kg/min into air drying equipment and produced the dried powder which had the water content of 62.3 wt% and mass median diameter of 2.4 mm after process. At that time, it was analyzed that water removal rate was 0.1 $H_2O{\Delta}kg/min{\cdot}DS$ kg and air consumption was 170 $m^3/DS$ kg. Under same experimental conditions, when waterworks sludge was dried, water content of dried powder decrease to 47.5 wt% and mass median diameter decrease 2.1 mm and water removal rate increase 0.13 $H_2O{\Delta}kg/min{\cdot}DS$ kg. Air consumption increase 180 $m^3/DS$ kg with comparison to the results of wastewater sludge. Therefore, this technology was evaluated that drying the dewatered cake of waterworks sludge was more efficient than wastewater sludge, and also economical sludge handling technology due to drying the cake by only air.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.763-770
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of mechanical(ball-mill) solubilization of excess sludge especially focused on the TSS(total suspended solid) reduction during the conventional aerobic digestion of sewage sludges including primary and/or excess sludge, HRT was examined at the 10 days and 20 days. According to the results of this study, TSS removal efficiency of solubilized excess sludge was almost two times higher than that of non-solubilized excess sludge. And as the proportion of the primary sludge increased, TSS removal efficiency became worse because primary sludge rarely contained microbial cells which could be easily solubilized physically. It was also proved that by the application of proper solubilization techniques to the excess sludge, HRT for the aerobic digestion could be lessened(above 50%) dramatically keeping the same or better digestion performance. The fact that between primary and excess sludges, only the excess sludge is quite effective in the sludge solubilization and in it's reduction says that excess sludge releasing sources are key-point in the sludge cake reduction field as a source control.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.875-883
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• 2006

The carbon and nitrogen removal process using PVA-gel (Polyvinyl Alcohol) immobilized microorganisms was studied. The process has been operated under diverse process conditions for 12 months. The process consists of denitrification with internal recycle of 300%, nitrification, aerobic digestion reactors and settling tank. Nitrificatoin and nitrogen removal efficiency according to gel packing ratio and temperature were studied. Yield for Heterotrophs ($Y_H$), decay coefficient for Heterotrophs($b_H$) in aerobic digestion reactor were determined to seize sludge reduction mechanism and compared with typical data of activated sludge process. Then SRT in aerobic digestion reactor was determined on an experimental basis and sludge reduction efficiency was calculated. The process was implemented successfully with sludge reduction efficiency of 92.0~98.5% on a basis of biomass.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.316-320
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• 1999

The purpose of this research was to estimate dewatering characteristics of generating water treatment plant by dewatering velocity, suitable polymer and mixing condition. Zeta potential of sludge in storage tank was negative and in case of adding cation, anion and nonion polymer for sludge conditioning, specific resistance coefficients of conditioned sludge were similar at zeta potential -5㎷. But above zeta potential -15㎷, canon polymer was more effective than others for reduction of specific resistance coefficients. Using of cation acrylate polymer showed better dewatering coefficients than cation methacrylate polymer.

• Journal of Dairy Science and Biotechnology
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.244-248
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• 2017

The effects of ultrasonic (1.2~1.7 kJ/g TS) pretreatment on the solubilization of dairy and livestock sludge were separately evaluated to investigate the possibility of recycling dairy sludge as a potential source of organic carbon. Compared to other industrial wastewater and sewage sludge, dairy sludge has higher organic matter content and no toxic materials. The solubilization rates of dairy and livestock sludge, at a specific energy input of 1.7 kJ/g TS, were 14.5% and 10.6%, respectively. After the 90-minute ultrasonic treatment, the soluble COD (chemical oxygen demand) increased about 7.1 times that of the initial SCOD, at an increase rate of $0.022m^{-1}$. In comparison, the increase in soluble nitrogen, which was ~3.4 times that of the initial soluble nitrogen concentration, was much smaller than the increase in SCOD; thus, the C/N ratio increased from 4.0 to 8.7.