• Resources Recycling
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.67-76
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• 2022

The furniture industry has a high possibility to create value-added and a high potential to create new occupations due to the characteristics of the industry, which mainly consists of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, the used furniture, which has sufficient reuse value, is also crushed and used as solid refuse fuel (SRF) recently. Besides, the number of waste treatment companies continues to decrease, and it occurs congestion of wood waste. As a way to solve the issue, a business model development of remanufacturing used furniture can be suggested as an alternative due to its high circular economic efficiency. Remanufacturing business including furniture industry creates positive effects in various aspects such as economic, environmental and job creation. In other words, remanufacturing is an effective recycling way to reduce input resources and energy in the production process. The results of economic analysis show that the expected annual revenue from the single worker furniture remanufacturing site was 104 million won which is 3.11 times more than the average income of a single-worker household in Korea and its B/C ratio was estimated about 30 which means high business feasibility. Revenue through furniture remanufacturing also showed 320 times higher than that of SRF production from the perspective of weight. In addition, it is shown that the GHGs reduction from the furniture remanufacturing is 2.2 ton CO₂-eq. per year, which is similar to the amount of GHGs absorption effect of 937 pine trees or 622 Korean oak trees annually. Thus the results of this study demonstrate that it is important to adopt an appropriate recycling method considering the economic and environmental effects at the end-of-life stage.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.91-106
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• 2022

Cryptocurrency, stood out the sharp cost rising of Bitcoin has been spotlighted by means of the solution for stagflation because it is decentralized with an existing currency differently. Especially getting into 4th industrial revolution, technologies using block chain and internet of things have been used in the many fields, and the power of influence is also widespread. Nevertheless like a remark of Elon Musk of Tesla CEO, the problems of environmental contamination for cryptocurrency have been pointed out continuously and the most representative of them is an enormous electric usage as the use of fossil fuels. Also the amount generated of carbon dioxide result in the acceleration of global warming mainly based on the climate changes of earth if the existing mining method is continued. On the other hand, review researches have been conducted restrictively as the connection with environmental contamination as the mining of cryptocurrency. In this study, it intended to review problems for environmental contamination as the diversification of ecological system of cryptocurrency concretely. Upon investigation existing prior documents on the putting recent data first, the mining of cryptocurrency has affected on the environmental contamination conflicting with carbon neutrality as increasement of the electric usage and electronic wastes. And POS method without the mining process appeared, but it had a demerit collapsing a decentralization and then we met turning point on appearing various environmental-friendly cryptocurrency. Finally the appearance of cryptocurrency using new renewable energy acted on the opportunity of the usage maximization of energy storage apparatus and the birth of national government intervention. Based on these results, we mention clearly that hereafter cryptocurrency will regress if not go abreast the value of currency as well as environmental approach.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.62 no.1
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• pp.36-43
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• 2024

Fishing net waste (FNW) constitutes over half of all marine plastic waste and is a major contributor to the degradation of marine ecosystems. While current treatment options for FNW include incineration, landfilling, and mechanical recycling, these methods often result in low-value products and pollutant emissions. Importantly, FNWs, comprised of plastic polymers, can be converted into valuable resources like syngas and pyrolysis oil through pyrolysis. Thus, this study presents a process for generating high-purity hydrogen (H₂) by catalytically pyrolyzing FNW in a CO₂ environment. The proposed process comprises of three stages: First, the pretreated FNW undergoes Ni/SiO₂ catalytic pyrolysis under CO₂ conditions to produce syngas and pyrolysis oil. Second, the produced pyrolysis oil is incinerated and repurposed as an energy source for the pyrolysis reaction. Lastly, the syngas is transformed into high-purity H₂ via the Water-Gas-Shift (WGS) reaction and Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA). This study compares the results of the proposed process with those of traditional pyrolysis conducted under N₂ conditions. Simulation results show that pyrolyzing 500 kg/h of FNW produced 2.933 kmol/h of high-purity H₂ under N₂ conditions and 3.605 kmol/h of high-purity H₂ under CO₂ conditions. Furthermore, pyrolysis under CO₂ conditions improved CO production, increasing H₂ output. Additionally, the CO₂ emissions were reduced by 89.8% compared to N₂ conditions due to the capture and utilization of CO₂ released during the process. Therefore, the proposed process under CO₂ conditions can efficiently recycle FNW and generate eco-friendly hydrogen product.