• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
• /
• v.31 no.6
• /
• pp.562-572
• /
• 2015

$NO_x$ emissions from diesel vehicles have been regarded as a main cause of high $NO_2$ concentration in metropolitan area. Recent studies have shown that the on-road $NO_x$ emissions of diesel vehicles are quite higher than the emission limits specified with the pre-defined test method for emission certification. To reduce air pollutants effectively, the discrepancy of emissions in certification and real-driving conditions should be tackled. In this study, the real-driving emissions have been estimated with portable emission measurement system (PEMS). The results of this study have shown that the on-road $NO_x$ emissions from diesel vehicles have been decreased as the introduction of stricter emission regulation, EURO-6, but additional reduction should be still required and robust technologies should be applied to control $NO_x$ in real-driving conditions. RDE-LDV (Real Driving Emission - Light Duty Vehicles) test method being developed in the European Union can represent excessive on-road $NO_x$ emissions of diesel vehicles as applied emission technologies and can be a solution to remove discrepant $NO_x$ emissions between certification and Korean real-driving conditions. Among the $NO_x$ reduction technologies for EURO-6 diesel vehicles, selective catalytic reduction (SCR) system has shown the better performance than lean $NO_x$ trap (LNT) system to control on-road $NO_x$ emissions. Implementing RDE-LDV will require vehicle manufacturers to adopt the more effective $NO_x$ reduction technology in real driving conditions.

• Atmosphere
• /
• v.26 no.1
• /
• pp.141-158
• /
• 2016

The objective of this study is to examine the impact of urban canopy and the horizontal resolution on simulated meteorological variables such as 10-m wind speed, 2-m temperature and precipitation using WRF model for a local, convective rainfall case. We performed four sensitivity tests by varying the use of urban canopy model (UCM) and the horizontal resolution, then compared the model results with observations of AWS network. The focus of our study is over the Seoul metropolitan area for a convective rainfall that occurred on 16 August 16 2015. The analysis shows that mean diurnal variation of temperature is better simulated by the model runs with UCM before the convective rainfall. However, after rainfall, model shows significant difference in air temperature among sensitivity tests depending on the simulated rainfall amount. The rainfall amount is significantly underestimated in 0.5 km resolution model run compared to 1.5 km resolution, particularly over the urban areas. This is due to earlier occurrence of light rainfall in 0.5 km resolution model. Earlier light rainfall in the afternoon eliminates convective instability significantly, which prevents occurrence of rainfall later in the evening. The use of UCM results in a higher maximum rainfall in the domain, which is due to higher temperature in model runs with urban canopy. Earlier occurrence of rainfall in 0.5 km resolution model is related to rapid growth of PBL. Enhanced mixing and higher temperature result in rapid growth of PBL, which provides more favorable conditions for convection in the 0.5 km resolution run with urban canopy. All sensitivity tests show dry bias, which also contributes to the occurrence of light precipitation throughout the simulation period.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
• /
• v.41 no.4
• /
• pp.368-372
• /
• 2016

Background: Methodologies for a series of radiological consequence assessments show a distinctive difference according to the design principles of the original nuclear suppliers and their technical standards to be imposed. This is due to the uncertainties of the accidental source term, radionuclide behavior in the environment, and subsequent radiological dose. Both types of PWR and PHWR are operated in Korea. However, technical standards for evaluating atmospheric dispersion have been enacted based on the U.S. NRC's positions regardless of the reactor types. For this reason, it might cause a controversy between the licensor and licensee of a nuclear power plant. Materials and Methods: It was modelled under the framework of the NRC Regulatory Guide 1.145 for light-water reactors, reflecting the features of heavy-water reactors as specified in the Canadian National Standard and the modelling features in MACCS2, such as atmospheric diffusion coefficient, ground deposition, surface roughness, radioactive plume depletion, and exposure from ground deposition. Results and Discussion: An integrated accident consequence assessment code, ACCESS (Accident Consequence Assessment Code for Evaluating Site Suitability), was developed by taking into account the unique regulatory positions for reactor types under the framework of the current Korean technical standards. Field tracer experiments and hand calculations have been carried out for validation and verification of the models. Conclusion: The modelling approaches of ACCESS and its features are introduced, and its applicative results for a hypothetical accidental scenario are comprehensively discussed. In an applicative study, the predicted results by the light-water reactor assessment model were higher than those by other models in terms of total doses.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.341-363
• /
• 2016

Haze or fog is a common natural phenomenon. In foggy weather, the captured pictures are difficult to be applied to computer vision system, such as road traffic detection, target tracking, etc. Therefore, the image dehazing technique has become a hotspot in the field of image processing. This paper presents an overview of the existing achievements on the image dehazing technique. The intent of this paper is not to review all the relevant works that have appeared in the literature, but rather to focus on two main works, that is, image dehazing scheme based on atmospheric veil and image dehazing scheme based on dark channel prior. After the overview and a comparative study, we propose an improved image dehazing method, which is based on two image dehazing schemes mentioned above. Our image dehazing method can obtain the fog-free images by proposing a more desirable atmospheric veil and estimating atmospheric light more accurately. In addition, we adjust the transmission of the sky regions and conduct tone mapping for the obtained images. Compared with other state of the art algorithms, experiment results show that images recovered by our algorithm are clearer and more natural, especially at distant scene and places where scene depth jumps abruptly.

• Atmosphere
• /
• v.25 no.1
• /
• pp.129-140
• /
• 2015

The statistical analysis of aviation turbulence occurred over South Korea and East Asia regions is performed, using pilot reports (PIREPs) during December 2002~November 2012 that were provided by the Korea Aviation Meteorological Agency (KAMA) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). In South Korea, the light (LGT)- and moderate or greater (MOG)-level turbulence events occurred most frequently in spring and winter due to strong vertical wind shear below or above jet stream in these seasons. Spatially, the LGT- and MOG-level events occurred mainly along domestic flight routes. The higher occurrences of the LGT- and MOG-level convectively induced turbulence (CIT) events show in spring and summer when convective systems frequently affect the Korean peninsula. The results are generally similar to a previous study on the aviation turbulence over South Korea during 2003~2008, except that MOG-level CIT events occurred more in February, June, and October. Over East Asia region, the LGT- and MOG-level events appeared mostly in summer and spring, respectively, and the highest occurrence is over the southeast region of Japan and Kamchatka peninsula near Russia.

• Asian Journal of Atmospheric Environment
• /
• v.11 no.4
• /
• pp.217-234
• /
• 2017

Indoor air pollutants can cause severe health problems, specifically in terms of toxicological impacts on human. Every day, a complex mixture of many air pollutants is emitted from various sources and subject to atmospheric processes that can create varied classes of pollutants such as carboxylic acids, aldehydes, ketones, peroxyacetyl nitrate, and hydrocarbons. To adhere to indoor air quality standards, a number of techniques such as photocatalytic oxidation of various volatile organic compounds (VOCs) have been employed. Among these techniques, titania ($TiO_2$) based photocatalytic reactions have proven to be the best benchmark standard approach in the field of environmental applications. Over the last 45 years, $TiO_2$-based photocatalytic reactions have been explored for the degradation of various pollutants. This review discusses the indoor air quality profile, types of indoor pollutants, available indoor air cleaning approaches, and performance of $TiO_2$-based catalysts. Finally, we have presented the perspectives on the progress of $TiO_2$ induced photocatalysis for the purification of indoor air.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
• /
• v.28 no.2
• /
• pp.159-171
• /
• 2012

Aerosol direct radiative forcing (ADRF) retrieval method was developed by combining data from passive and active satellite sensors. Aerosol optical thickness (AOT) retrieved form the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) as a passive visible sensor and aerosol vertical profile from to the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) as an active laser sensor were investigated an application possibility. Especially, space-born Light Detection and Ranging (Lidar) observation provides a specific knowledge of the optical properties of atmospheric aerosols with spatial, temporal, vertical, and spectral resolutions. On the basis of extensive radiative transfer modeling, it is demonstrated that the use of the aerosol vertical profiles is sensitive to the estimation of ADRF. Throughout the investigation of relationship between aerosol height and ADRF, mean change rates of ADRF per increasing of 1 km aerosol height are smaller at surface than top-of-atmosphere (TOA). As a case study, satellite data for the Asian dust day of March 31, 2007 were used to estimate ADRF. Resulting ADRF values were compared with those retrieved independently from MODIS only data. The absolute difference values are 1.27% at surface level and 4.73% at top of atmosphere (TOA).

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
• /
• v.12 no.4
• /
• pp.45-48
• /
• 2013

The electronic device, such as flat panel display (FPD), is very important in our life as a means of communication between humans. Liquid crystal display (LCD), which is categorized as a flat panel display, has been used in many display products, especially in TV industry. An LED TV is composed of several electrical components, such as liquid critical module (LCM), analog to digital convertor (AD), power supplier, and inverter board. These modules are very vulnerable to particulate contamination, and causing malfunction or visibility degradation. In this study, we developed a test method for prediction of LCM's lifetime. The test system consists of carbon particle generation flame, dilution system, test chamber, and particle concentration monitoring instrument. Since the carbon particles are the most abundant in the atmosphere and easily absorb light, soot particles are used as a challenging material for this test. The concentration of generated soot particles is set around 4,000,000 #/cc, which is 400 times higher than that of usual atmospheric particles. Through this experiment, we deduced the relationship between the dust concentration and life time of the test specimen.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2013.02a
• /
• pp.582-582
• /
• 2013

Oxide TFT (thin film transistor) active channel layer에 대한 저온 열처리 공정은 투명하고 flexibility을 기반으로하는 display 산업과 AMOLED (active matrix organic light emitting diode) 분야 등 다양한 분야에서 필요로 하는 기술로서 많은 연구가 이루어지고 있다. 과거 active layer는 ALD (atomic layer deposition), CVD (chemical vapor deposition), pulse laser deposition, radio frequency-dc (RF-dc) magnetron sputtering 등과 같은 고가의 진공 장비를 이용하여 증착 되어져 왔으나 현재에는 진공 장비 없이 spin-coating 후 열처리 하는 저가의 공정이 주로 연구되어 지고 있다. Flexible 기판들은 일반적인 OTFT (oxide thin films Transistor)에 적용되는 열처리 온도로 공정 진행시 열에 의한 기판의 손상이 발생한다. Flexible substrate의 열에 의한 기판 손상을 막기 위해 저온 열처리 공정이 연구되고 있지만 기존 열처리와 비교하여 소자의 특성 저하가 동반 되었다. 본 연구에서는 Si 기판위에 SiO2 (100)를 절연층으로 증착하고 그 위에 IZO (indium zinc oxide) solution을 spin-coating 한뒤 $250^{\circ}C$ 이하의 온도에서 열처리하였다. 저온 공정으로 인하여 소자의 특성 저하가 동반 되었으므로 소자의 저하된 특성 복원하고자 post-treatment로 고가의 진공장비가 필요 없고 roll-to roll system 적용이 수월한 remote-type의 APP (atmospheric pressure plasma) 처리를 하였다. Post-treatment로 APP를 이용하여 $250^{\circ}C$ 이하에서 소자에 적용 가능한 on/off ratio를 얻을 수 있었다.

• Journal of Microbiology
• /
• v.44 no.3
• /
• pp.269-275
• /
• 2006

Atmospheric-pressure cold plasma (APCP) using helium/oxygen was developed and tested as a suitable sterilization method in a clinical environment. The sterilizing effect of this method is not due to UV light, which is known to be the major sterilization factor of APCP, but instead results from the action of reactive oxygen radicals. Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Saccharomyces cerevisiae deposited on a nitrocellulose filter membrane or Bacillus subtilis spores deposited on polypropylene plates were exposed to helium/oxygen plasma generated with AC input power at 10 kHz, 6 kV. After Plasma treatment, nitrocellulose filter membranes were overlaid on fresh solid media and CFUs were counted after incubation overnight. D-values were 18 sec for E. coli, 19 sec for S. aureus, 1 min 55 sec for S. cerevisiae, and 14 min for B. subtilis spores. D-values of bacteria and yeast were dependent on the initial inoculation concentration, while the D-value of B. subtilis spores showed no correlation. When treated cells were observed with a scanning electron microscope, E. coli was more heavily damaged than S. aureus, S. cevevisiae exhibited peeling, and B. subtilis spores exhibited shrunken morphology. Results showed that APCP using helium/oxygen has many advantages as a sterilization method, especially in a clinical environment with conditions such as stable temperature, unlimited sample size, and no harmful gas production.