• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.22-25
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• 2023

Although most patients prefer dying at home, patients whose condition rapidly becomes critical need care in the intensive care unit (ICU), and it is rare for them to die at home with their families. Therefore, interest in hospice and palliative care for patients in the ICU is increasing. Hospice and palliative care (PC) is necessary for all patients with life-threatening diseases. The following patients need palliative care in the ICU: patients with chronic critical illnesses who need tracheostomy, percutaneous gastrostomy tube, and extracorporeal life support; patients aged 80 years or older; stage 4 cancer patients; patients with specific acute diseases with a poor prognosis (e.g., anoxic brain injury and intracerebral hemorrhage requiring mechanical ventilation); and patients for whom the attending physician expects a poor prognosis. There are two PC models-a consultative model and an integrative model-in the ICU setting. Since these two models have advantages and disadvantages, it is necessary to apply the model that best fits each hospital's circumstances. Furthermore, interdisciplinary decision-making between the ICU care team and PC specialists should be strengthened to increase the provision of hospice and palliative care services for patients expected to have poor outcomes and their families.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.34-41
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• 2012

The variation of dissolved oxygen (DO) was monitored with high frequency by an automatic data-logging sensor in a eutrophic urban stream (the Anyang Stream) located in a metropolitan area of Seoul, South Korea. In general, DO showed the diel variation of increase in daytime and decrease at night, implying that primary production is a major mechanism of oxygen supply in this ecosystem. The fluctuation of oxygen was determined by rainfall. DO depletion was most obvious after a rainfall resulting in an anoxic condition for a day, which is thought to be caused by scouring of periphyton and organic ooze at the stream bottom. Seasonally DO was higher in winter and frequently depleted in warm seasons. DO depletion was often at a dangerous level for fish survival. Fish survey showed that little fish was living at the study site and oxygen depletion may be the major stress factor for aquatic animals. From the results it can be suggested that a high frequency monitoring of oxygen should be established for the proper assessment of aquatic habitats and better management strategy.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.198-207
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• 1999

Five core sediments acquired from the Lake Shihwa are analyzed for variations of sedimentary environment and heavy metal pollution after the Shihwa seawall construction. The depositional environment of the study area is divided into anoxic, oxic and mixed suboxic conditions based on the C/N ratio and C/S ratios of organic matters. Controlling factors for redox condition are the water depth and the difference in industrial effluents supply. Correlations among geochemical elements (Mn, U, Mo) show a distinctive difference and thus can be used as an indicator of redox condition. The content of Al, Ti are dependent on the sediment characteristics, and the contents of heavy metals (Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, and Pb) indicate heavy metal pollution. The concentrations of heavy metals are higher near Shiswa-Banwol industrial complexies than the central part of Lake Shihwa. Especially, the accumulation of the heavy metal at the surface sediments near Shihwa-Banwol industrial complex are two to eight times higher than in the center of Lake Shihwa.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.23-29
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• 2006

Biosorption technology was used to remove hazardous materials from wastewater, herbicide, heavy metals, and radioactive compounds, based on binding capacities of various biological materials. Biosorption process can be explained by two steps; the first step is that target contaminants is in contact with microorganisms and the second is that the adsorbed target contaminants is infiltrated with inner cell through metabolically mediated or physico-chemical pathways of uptake. Until recently, no information is available to explain the definitive mechanism of biosorption. The purpose of this study is to evaluate biosorption capabilities of organic matters using activated sludge and to investigate affecting factors upon biosorption. Over 49% of organic matter could be removed by positive biosorption reaction under anoxic condition within 10 minutes. The biosorption capacities were constant at around 50 mg-COD/mg-MLSS for all batch experiments. As starvation time increased under aerobic or anaerobic conditions, biosorption capacity increased since higher stressed microorganisms by starvation was more brisk. Starvation stress of microorganisms was higher at aerobic condition than anaerobic one. As temperature increased or easily biodegradable carbon sources were used, biosorption capacities increased. Consequently, biosorption can be estimated by biological -adsorbed capability of the bacterial cell-wall and we can achieve the cost-effective and non -residual denitrification with applying biosorption to the bio-reduction of nitrate.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.114-120
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to obtain practical information about membrane coupled $ A_2O$ system for muncipal wastewater treatment. A flat-plate microfiltration (MF) module with a pore size $0.25\;{\mu}m$ was submerged into the aeration basin and treated water was filtrated through the membrane by continuous suction with low pressure. The system was operated with synthetic wastewater to find operational parameters of internal recycle ratio and maximum MLSS showing best water quality and long-term stability. The internal recycle was defined as type 1 for aerobic to anoxic tank and type 2 for anoxic to anaerobic tank, respectively When the flux was maintained at $0.015\;m^3/m^2/hr$ (15 LMH) with 2Q type 1 internal recycle ratio, the optimal operational setting were 10 internal recycle ratio for type 2 and maximum MLSS of 11,000 mg/L among tested conditions. At this condition, removal efficiencies of BOD, CODcr, T-N and T-P showed $97.3\%,\;94.2\%,\;64.0\%,\;63.0\%$, respectively.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.213-226
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• 2005

To treat wastewater efficiently by a one-step process of nitrogen removal, a new bacterial strain producing $N_2$ gas from ${NH_4}^+$ under an aerobic condition was isolated and identified. The cell was motile and a Gram-negative rod, and usually occurred in pairs. By 16S-rDNA analysis, the isolated strain was identified as Enterobacter asburiae with 96% similarity. The isolate showed that the capacity of $N_2$ production under an oxic condition was approximately three times higher than that under an anoxic condition. Thus, the consumption of ${NH_4}^+$ by the isolate was significantly different in the metabolism of $N_2$ production under the two different environmental conditions. The optimal conditions of the immobilized isolate for $N_2$ production were found to be pH 7.0, $30^{\circ}C$ and C/N ratio 5, respectively. Under all the optimum reaction conditions, $N_2$ production by the immobilized isolate resulted in reduction of ORP with both the consumption of DO and the drop of pH. The removal efficiencies of $COD_{Cr}$, and TN were 56.1 and 60.9%, respectively. The removal rates of $COD_{Cr}$, and TN were the highest for the first 2.5 hrs with the removal $COD_{Cr}/TN$ ratios of 32.1, and afterwards the rates decreased as reaction proceeded. For application of the immobilized isolate to a practical process of ammonium removal, a continuous operation was executed with a synthetic medium of a low C/N ratio. The continuous bioreactor system exhibited a satisfactory performance at 12.1 hrs of HRT, in which the effluent concentrations of ${NH_4}^+$-N was measured to be 15.4 mg/L with its removal efficiency of 56.0%. The maximum removal rate of ${NH_4}^+$-N reached 1.6 mg ${NH_4}^+$-N/L/hr at 12.1 hrs of HRT(with N loading rate of $0.08\;Kg-N/m^3$-carrier/d). As a result, the application of the immobilized isolate appears a viable alternative to the nitrification-denitrification processes.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.79-85
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• 2020

A single-stage deammonification with a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) that simultaneous nitritation, anaerobic ammonia oxidation (anammox), and denitrification (SNAD) occur in one reactor has been widely applied for sidestream of wastewater treatment plant. For the stable and well-balanced SNAD, a feeding strategy of influent wastewater is one of the most important operating factors in the single-stage deammonification SBR. In this study, single-stage deammonification SBR (working volume 30L) was operated to treat a high-strength ammonium wastewater (1200 mg NH₄⁺-N/L) with different feeding strategies (single feeding and nine-step feeding) under the condition without COD. Each cycle of the step feeding involved 6 sub-cycles consisted of aerobic and anoxic periods for partial nitritation (PN) and anammox, respectively. Contrary to unstable performance in the single feeding, the step feeding showed better deammonification performance (0.565 kg-N/m³/day). Under the condition with COD, however, the nitrogen removal rate (NRR) decreased to 0.403 kg-N/m³/day when the Nine-step feeding strategies had an additional denitrification period before sub-cycles for PN and anammox. The NRR was recovered to 0.518 kg-N/m³/day by introducing an enhanced multiple-step feeding strategy. The strategy had 50 cycles consisted of feed, denitrification, PN, and anammox, instead of repeated sub-cycles for PN and anammox. The multiple-step feeding strategy without sub-cycle showed the most stable and excellent deammonification performance: high nitrogen removal efficiency (98.6%), COD removal rate (0.131 kg-COD/m³/day), and COD removal efficiency (78.8%). This seemed to be caused by that the elimination of the sub-cycles might reduce COD oxidation during aerobic condition but increase the COD utilization for denitrification period. In addition, among various sensor values, the ORP pattern appeared to be applicable to monitor and control each reaction step for deammonification in the multiple-step feeding strategy without sub-cycle. Further study to optimize the number of multiple-step feeding is still needed but these results show that the multiple-step feeding strategy can contribute to a well-balanced SNAD for deammonification when treating high-strength ammonium wastewater with COD in the single-stage deammonification SBR.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.322-328
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• 2009

The advantage of simultaneous nitrification and denitrification (SND) is to reduce requirement of oxygen as well as tank volume. The fludized media was used in the oxic (aerobic) tank of Membrane-BNR to enhance the efficiency of SND. Nowadays, the interest of applying membrane to the wastewater treatment plant has been increased, which is proved by a lot of research published about the MBR. The Membrane-BNR, consisted of total 5 reactors might be called the compact process by using the fludized media and having short HRT of 6.5 hr. It could attain the further removal of not only the organics but also nutrients such as T-N and T-P. The mode A and B were identified with or without the step feed of influent. The mode A was classified with 3 modes according to the different DO concentration in the fludized media aerobic reactor, and the mode B with step feed was operated with the optimum DO condition. The step-feed was capable of improving TN removal efficiency under the domestic wastewater with the low ratio C/N. On the other hand, the efficiency of SND with the 1.0~1.5 mg/L DO in the oxic media tank was better than the one with below 1.0 mg/L, on which the nitrification did not happen enough, and with above 3.5 mg/L, on which the reduction of anoxic area in the tank happened. It means that the profitable nitrification should be performed prior to the denitrification step. The removal efficiency of nitrogen by SND was about 20% among of total denitrified nitrogen. And some organic carbon consumed could be reduced by the endogeneous denitrification.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.161-170
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• 2014

It is essential to decrease energy consumption and excess sludge to economically operate sewage treatment plant. This becomes more important along with a ban on sea dumping and exhaustion of resource. Therefore, many researchers have been study on energy consumption reduction and strategies for minimization of excess sludge production from the activated sludge process. The aeration cost account for a high proportion of maintenance cost because sufficient air is necessary to keep nitrifying bacteria activity of which the oxygen affinity is inferior to that of heterotrophic bacteria. Also, additional costs are incurred to stabilize excess sludge and decrease the volume of sludge. There were anoxic, aerobic, membrane, deairation and concentration zone in this MBR process. Continuous aeration was provided to prevent membrane fouling in membrane zone and intermittent aeration was provided in aerobic zone through ammonia sensor. So, there was the minimum oxygen to remove $NH_4-N$ below limited quantity that could be eliminated in membrane zone. As the result of this control, energy consumption of aeration system declined by between 10.4 % and 19.1 %. Besides, we could maintain high MLSS concentration in concentration zone and this induced the microorganisms to be in starved condition. Consequentially, the amount of excess sludge decrease by about 15 %.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.642-649
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• 2007

The effectiveness of add-on tertiary treatment processes for the polishing of the effluent of a biological nutrient removal (BNR) system from a modified $A^2/O$ process has been examined under the field condition with pilot-scale plants. The add-on treatment processes of 1) combined biofilm anoxic reactor and sand filtration, and 2) two-stage denitrification filter had been operated with various operating conditions. The experimental results indicated that two-stage denitrification filter could produced a better polished tertiary effluent. Filtration rate of $150m^3/m^2{\cdot}d$ for the 2-stage denitrifying filter could decrease the nitrate removal probably due to shorter detention time that caused insufficient reaction for denitrification. Two stage denitrification filter operated with M/N ratio of 3.0 and filtration rate of $100m^3/m^2{\cdot}d$ produced the tertiary effluent with nitrate and SS concentraitons of 2.8 mg/L and 2.3 mg/L, respectively. When the operating temperature reduced $30^{\circ}C$ to $18^{\circ}C$, $NO_3{^-}-N$ removal efficiency decreased from 73% to 68%.