• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.1-10
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• 2022

Exhaust gases emitted from internal combustion engines contain nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulfur oxides (SOx), which are major air pollutants causing acid rain, respiratory diseases, and photochemical smog. As a countermeasure, scrubber systems are being studied extensively. In this study, the pressure drop characteristics were analyzed by changing the exhaust gas inflow velocity using a scrubber for a 700 kW engine as a model. In addition, the fluid flow inside the scrubber and the behavioral characteristics of the droplets were studied using CFD, and the design compatibility of the cleaning device was verified. Flow analysis was performed using inertial and viscous resistances by applying porous media to the complex shape of the scrubber. The speed of the exhaust passing through the outlet nozzle from the inlet was determined through the droplet behavior analysis by spraying, and the flow characteristics for the pressure drop were studied. In addition, it was confirmed through computational analysis whether there was a stagnation section in the exhaust gas flow in the scrubber or the sprayed droplets were in good contact with the exhaust gas.

• Journal of Surface Science and Engineering
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.208-218
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• 2023

Photocatalysts are advanced materials which accelerate the photoreaction by providing ordinary reactions with other pathways. The catalysts have various advantages, such as low-cost, low operating temperature and pressure, and long-term use. They are applied to environmental and energy field, including the air and water purification, water splitting for hydrogen production, sterilization and self-cleaning surfaces. However, commercial photocatalysts only absorb ultraviolet light between 100 and 400 nm of wavelength which comprises only 5% in sunlight due to the wide band gap. In addition, rapid recombination of electron-hole pairs reduces the photocatalytic performance. Recently, studies on blackening photocatalysts by laser, thermal, and plasma treatments have been conducted to enhance the absorption of visible light and photocatalytic activity. The disordered structures could yield mid-gap states and vacancies could cause charge carrier trapping. Herein, liquid phase plasma (LPP) is adopted to synthesize Ag-doped black ZnO for the utilization of visible-light. The physical and chemical characteristics of the synthesized photocatalysts are analyzed by SEM/EDS, XRD, XPS and the optical properties of them are investigated using UV/Vis DRS and PL analyses. Lastly, the photocatalytic activity was evaluated using methylene blue as a pollutant.

• Clean Technology
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.31-38
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• 2023

Due to water shortages caused by water pollution and climate change, total organic carbon (TOC) standards have been implemented for wastewater discharged from public sewage treatment facilities. Furthermore, there is a growing interest and body of research pertaining to the reuse of sewage treatment water as a secure alternative water resource. The membrane bio-reactor (MBR) method is commonly used for advanced wastewater treatment because it can remove organic and inorganic ions and it does not require or emit any chemicals. However, the MBR process uses a separation membrane (MF), which requires frequent film cleaning due to fouling caused by a high concentration of mixed liquor suspended solid (MLSS). In this study, process improvement and microbubble cleaning efficiency were evaluated to improve the differential pressure, water flow, and MF fouling, which are the biggest disadvantages of operating the MF. The existing MBR method was improved by installing a precipitation tank between the air tank and the MBR tank in which raw water was introduced. Microbubbles were injected into a separation membrane tank into which the supernatant water from the precipitation tank was introduced. The microbubble generator was operated with a 15 day on, 15 day off cycle for 5 months to collect discharged water samples (4L) and measure TOC. As the supernatant water from the precipitation tank flowed into the separation membrane tank, about 95% of the supernatant water MLSS was removed so the MF fouling from biological contamination was prevented. Due to the application of microbubbles to supernatant water from the precipitation tank, the differential pressure of the separation membrane tank decreased by 1.6 to 2.3 times and the water flow increased by 1.4 times. Applying microbubbles increased the TOC removal rate by more than 58%. This study showed that separately operating the air tank and the separation membrane tank can reduce fouling, and suggested that applying additional microbubbles could improve the differential pressure, water flow, and fouling to provide a more efficient advanced treatment method.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.199-206
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• 2016

The aim of this study was to establish the optimal conditions to design a shoe rack that could effectively sterilize and deodorize shoes contaminated by various bacteria. The manufacture and evaluation of a shoe rock was conducted for one year from October 2014 to September 2015. The antibacterial efficacies were evaluated using Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus by JIS Z 2801:2010. The deodorization efficiency was identified by the standard method for deodorization efficiency evaluation of an indoor air cleaner established by Korea Air Cleaning Association, SPS-KACA002-132:2006. The results showed that antibacterial evaluation showed more than 99.9% of the sterilization effects on Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus after exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light for 30 seconds. The average deodorization efficiency for the test gases was 42.5%. The temperature in the shoes and in the shoe rack was lower than $40^{\circ}C$ and $25^{\circ}C$, respectively, when the UV lamp was turned on for 5 minutes and off for 25 minutes repeatedly. This was controlled by turning the UV lamp on and off to maintain the appropriate temperature in the shoes. In conclusion, the real deodorization efficiency is expected to be higher than the measured value because the internal volume of the shoe rack was smaller than the test chamber used to measure the deodorization efficiency. The deodorization effect could be increased further by the sterilization of bacteria causing bad odors in shoes. Further studies will be needed to determine the temperature deviations within the shoe rack to provide constant conditions.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.36-50
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to assign emission source profiles of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and particulate matters (PMs) for chemical speciation, and to correct the temporal allocation factor and the chemical speciation of source profiles according to the source classification code within the sparse matrix operator kernel emission system (SMOKE) in the Seoul metropolitan area. The chemical speciation from the source profiles of VOCs such as gasoline, diesel vapor, coating, dry cleaning and LPG include 12 and 34 species for the carbon bond IV (CBIV) chemical mechanism and the statewide air pollution research center 99 (SAPRC99) chemical mechanism, respectively. Also, the chemical speciation of PM2.5 such as soil, road dust, gasoline and diesel vehicles, industrial source, municipal incinerator, coal fired, power plant, biomass burning and marine was allocated to 5 species of fine PM, organic carbon, elementary carbon, $NO_3{^-}$, and $SO_4{^2-}$. In addition, temporal profiles for point and line sources were obtained by using the stack telemetry system (TMS) and hourly traffic flows in the Seoul metropolitan area for 2007. In particular, the temporal allocation factor for the ozone modeling at point sources was estimated based on $NO_X$ emission inventories of the stack TMS data.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.731-736
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• 2019

In this article, Pt/TiO₂ was manufactured in the form of powder and honeycomb, and the influence of SO₂, which is a poisonous substance to catalyst, and regeneration method were investigated. The catalytic activity of Pt/TiO₂ before and after the exposure to SO₂ was also compared. The initial activity of Pt/TiO₂ was proportional to the injected H₂ concentration (1~5%). And the optimum temperature of the catalyst and conversion rate of H₂ were 183 ℃ and 95%, respectively. It was confirmed that when exposing 2,800 ppm of SO₂ to the powder and honeycomb Pt/TiO₂, the performance of catalyst was not measurable and also 0.69% sulfur (S) remained on the catalyst surface. As a result of the cleaning and heat treatment for the poisoning catalyst, the activity of the powder catalyst exhibited a conversion rate of H₂ greater than 96%. Whereas, the honeycomb catalyst showed a conversion rate of H₂ greater than 95% when it was regenerated through the heat treatment of H₂ or air atmosphere.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.393-402
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• 2020

In the membrane process, it is important to improve water treatment efficiency to ensure water quality and minimize membrane fouling. In this study, a pilot study of membrane process using reservoir water was conducted for a long time to secure high flux operation technology capable of responding to influent turbidity changes. The raw water and DAF(Dissolved Air Flotation) treated water were used for influent water of membrane to analyze the effect of water quality on the TMP (Trans Membrane Pressure) and to optimize the membrane operation. When the membrane flux were operated at 70 LMH and 80 LMH under stable water quality conditions with an inlet turbidity of 10 NTU or less, the TMP increase rates were 0.28 and 0.24 kPa/d, respectively, with minor difference. When the membrane with high flux of 80 LMH was operated for a long time under inlet turbidity of 10 NTU or more, the TMP increase rate showed the maximum of 43.5 kPa/d. However, when the CEB(Chemically Enhanced Backwash) cycle was changed from 7 to 1 day, it was confirmed that the TMP increase rate was stable to 0.23 kPa/d. As a result of applying pre-treatment process(DAF) on unstability water quality conditions, it was confirmed that the TMP rise rates differed by 0.17 and 0.64 kPa/d according to the optimization of the coagulant injection. When combined with coagulation pretreatment, it was thought that the balance with the membrane process was more important than the emphasis on efficiency of the pretreatment process. It was considered that stable TMP can be maintained by optimizing the cleaning conditions when the stable or unstable water quality even in the high flux operation on membrane process.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.848-852
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• 2012

Vegetation can make not only to lower the urban ambient air temperature (UAAT) by crop evapotranspiration (ET) and increasing solar radiation albedo, but also to reduce the urban air pollution by $CO_2$ uptake and $O_2$ emission in addition to the reducing ozone concentrations by aid of lower the UAAT. To evaluate the effect of vegetation on urban heat island mitigation (UHIM), the climate change of 6 cities during 30 years are analysed, and the amount of ET, $CO_2$ uptake, $O_2$ emission and ozone concentrations are estimated in Korea. The most hot season is the last part of July and the first part of August, and the highest average UAAT of a period of ten days was $35.03^{\circ}C$ during 30 years (1979 - 2008). The mean values of maximum ET of rice and soybean in urban area during urban heat island phenomena were 6.86 and $6.00mm\;day^{-1}$, respectively. The effect of rice and soybean cultivation on lowering the UAAT was assessed to be 10.5 and $3.0^{\circ}C$ in Suwon, respectively, whereas the differences between the UAAT and canopy temperature at urban paddy and upland in Ansung were 2.6 and $2.2^{\circ}C$. On the other hand, the urban-garden in Suwon city had resulted in lowering the UAAT and the surface temperature of buildings to 2.0 and $14.5^{\circ}C$, respectively. Furthermore, the amounts of $CO_2$ uptake by rice and soybean were estimated to be 20.27 and $15.54kg\;CO_2\;10a^{-1}day^{-1}$, respectively. The amounts of $O_2$ emission by rice and soybean were also assessed to be 14.74 and $11.30kg\;O_2\;10a^{-1}day^{-1}$, respectively. As other cleaning effect of air pollution, the ozone concentrations could be also estimated to reduce 21.0, 8.8, and 4.0 ppb through rice-, soybean cultivation, and urban gardening during most highest temperature period in summer, respectively.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.155-163
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• 2017

Membrane filtration has become more popular in drinking water treatment recently, since the filtration can control not only particulate matters but also pathogenic microorganisms such as giardia and cryptosporidium very effectively. Pilot-scale ($120m^3/d$ of treatment capacity) and test-bed ($25,000m^3/d$ of treatment capacity) microfiltration experiments were conducted to find optimum operating mode and the critical flux. Optimum operating mode of pilot-test was assessed as inflow 1.0 min, filtration 36.5 min, air backwash 0.9 min, backwash 1.0 min and outflow 1.0 min with 50 LMH ($L/min{\cdot}m3^$) of critical flux. Critical Flux was calculated to be $50L/m^2-h$ (within TMP 0.5 bar) based on the increase formula of the transmembrane pressure difference according to the change of time at Flux 20, 40, 56 and 62 LMH in pilot operation. Chemical cleaning was first acid washed twice, and alkali washing was performed secondarily, and a recovery rate of 95% was obtained in the test-bed plant. The results of operating under these appropriate conditions are as follows. Turbidity of treated water were 0.028, 0.024, 0.026 and 0.028 NTU in spring, summer, autumn and winter time, respectively. Microfiltration has superior treatment capability and performance characteristics in removing suspended solids and colloidal materials, which are the main cause of turbidity and important carrier of metal elements, and it has shown great potential in being an economically substitute to traditional processes (sand filtration).

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.456-464
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• 2013

Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the microbial contamination levels in elevators in apartment buildings and to provide information on such microbial contamination. Methods: A total of 144 samples, including from the exterior buttons, interior buttons, elevator handrails, walls, ventilators and airborne bacteria were collected in the morning and afternoon from July to August 2013 for six different elevators. The samples were used to detect sanitary indicator bacteria (total bacteria, coliform, and Escherichia coli), pathogenic bacteria (E. coli O157, L. monocytogenes, Salmonella spp., B. cereus, S. aureus) and fungi. Results: Contamination levels of total bacteria were 0.3-3.8 and 0.0-2.4 log CFU/100 $cm^2$ in the morning and afternoon, respectively. In the case of coliform bacteria, the levels were 0.0-3.7 log CFU/100 $cm^2$ in the morning and 0.0-0.3 log CFU/100 $cm^2$ in the afternoon. However, E. coli was not detected among all samples. Bacillus cereus, pathogenic bacteria, was only detected in 13 (11%) among 144 samples. E. coli O157, L. monocytogenes, Salmonella spp. and S. aureus were not detected among all samples. Comparing the samples collected in the morning and afternoon, we could confirm that the samples in the afternoon were cleaner. Conclusions: This study indicates that the samples in the afternoon were cleaner because these samples were collected following routine cleaning. Also, the levels of contamination in the elevators were low and the sanitary conditions were comparatively well-managed. Therefore it is deemed necessary for elevators be cleaned regularly to provide good conditions for people using elevators.