• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
• /
• v.31 no.2
• /
• pp.53-61
• /
• 2023

Most of the sewage sludge is organic waste containing a large amount of organic substances decomposable by microorganisms by biological treatment. As for existing sewage sludge treatment methods, reduction and fuel conversion are being carried out using technologies such as drying, incineration, torrefaction, carbonization. However, the disadvantage of high energy consumption has been pointed out as latent heat of 539 kcal/kg is consumed based on drying. Therefore, in this study, we intend to produce solid fuel through hydrothermal carbonization(HTC), which is a thermochemical treatment. To evaluate the value of solid fuel, the characteristics of carbonization and fuel ratio were analyzed. As a result, as the hydrothermal carbonization reaction temperature increased, the lower heating value also increased by about 500 kcal/kg due to the increase in the degree of carbonization. H/C, O/C, ratio showed a decreasing trend from 1.78, 0.46 to 1.57, 0.32. When the ratio of ash to combustible content (fixed carbon + volatile) of dry sludge was 0.25 or more, it was derived that the degree of carbonization and calorific value did not increase even when hydrothermal carbonization was performed.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
• /
• v.14 no.4
• /
• pp.305-318
• /
• 2023

Purpose - This study analyzed the decoupling phenomenon between energy consumption and economic growth in Korea from 1990 to 2021. The main purpose of this study is to suggest policy implications for achieving a low-carbon society and decoupling that Korea must move forward in the face of the climate change crisis. Design/methodology/approach - This study investigated the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth by energy source and sector using the energy-EKC (EEKC) hypothesis which included the energy consumption on the traditional Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), and the impulse response function (IRF) model based on Bayesian vector auto-regression (BVAR). Findings - During the analysis period, the trend of decoupling of energy consumption and economic growth in Korea is confirmed starting from 1996. However, the decoupling tendency appeared differently depending on the differences in energy consumption by sources and fields. The results of the IRF model using data on energy consumption by source showed that the impact of GDP and renewable energy consumption resulted in an increase in energy consumption of bio and waste, but a decrease in energy consumption by sources, and the impact of trade dependence was found to increase the consumption of petroleum products. Research implications or Originality - According to the main results, efficient distribution by existing energy source is required through expansion of development of not only renewable energy but also alternative energy. Additionally, in order to increase the effectiveness of existing energy policies to achieve carbon neutrality, more detailed strategies by source and sector of energy consumption are needed.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
• /
• v.30 no.3
• /
• pp.252-260
• /
• 2011

BACKGROUND: Currently, national biomass inventory are being established for efficient management of the potential energy sources. Among the various types of biomass, agricultural wastes are considered to take the biggest portion of the total annual biomass generated in Korea, implying its importance. However, the currently estimated amount is not reliable because the old reference data are still used to estimate total annual amount of agricultural wastes. METHODS AND RESULTS: Therefore, to provide reliable estimation data, a correct conversion factor obtained by taking into account the current situation is required. For this, the current study was conducted to provide the conversion factors for each representative 8 crop through a field cultivation study. Also conversion factors for 18 crops were calculated using the average amount of each crop produced during 2004 and 2008, subsequently; total amount of agricultural wastes generated in 2009 was estimated using these conversion factors. The total biomass of rice straw and rice husk generated in 2009 were 6.5 and 1.1 million tons, respectively, which consist 75% of the total agricultural based wastes, while the total biomass of pepper shoots and apple pruning twigs were 1.0 and 0.6 million tons, respectively. Despite the high amount of rice-based biomass, their applicability for bio-energy production is low due to conventional utilization of these materials for animal feeds and beds for animal husbandry. In addition to exact estimation of the total biomass, temporal variations in both generated amount and the type of agricultural biomass materials are also important for efficient utilization; fruit pruning twigs (January to March); barley-, been-, and mustard-related waste materials (April to June); rice-related waste (September to October). CONCLUSION(s): Such information provided in this study can be used to establish a master plan for efficient utilization of the agricultural wastes on purpose of bio-energy production.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.4 no.4
• /
• pp.113-125
• /
• 1984

Water supply has been mainly dependent on the construction of the dams in Korea. It is difficult, however, to continue to construct dams for many reasons, such as the decrease of construction sites, the increase of construction costs, the compensation of residents in flooded areas, and the environmental effects. Water demands have increased and are expected to continue increasing due to the concentration of people in the cities, the rise of the living standard, and rapid industrial growth. It is acutely important to find countermeasures such as development of ground water, desalination, and recycling of waste water to cope with increasing water demands. Recycling waste water includes all means of supplying non-potable water for their respective usages with proper water quality which is not the same quality as potable water. The usages of the recycled water include toilet flushing, air conditioning, car washing, yard watering, road cleaning, park sprinkling, and fire fighting, etc. Raw water for recycling is obtained from drainage water from buildings, toilets, and cooling towers, treated waste water, polluted rivers, ground water, reinfall, etc. The water quantity must be considered as well as its quality in selecting raw water for the recycling. The types of recycling may be classified roughly into closed recycle systems and open recycle systems, which can be further subdivided into individual recycle systems, regional recycle systems and large scale recycle system. The treatment methods of wastewater combine biochemical and physiochemical methods. The former includes activated sludge treatment, bio-disc treatment, and contact aeration treatment, and the latter contains sedimentation, sand filtration, activated carbon adsorption, ozone treatment, chlorination, and membrane filter. The recycling patterns in other countries were investigated and the effects of the recycling were divided into direct and indirect effects. The problems of water reuse in recycle patterns were also studied. The problems include technological, sanitary, and operational problems as well as cost and legislative ones. The duties of installation and administrative organization, structural standards for reuse of water, maintenance and financial disposal were also studied.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
• /
• v.27 no.4
• /
• pp.435-440
• /
• 2008

Bovine mastitis is an important disease causing serious economic loss in dairy production and food poison in public health. The major causative agents of bovine mastitis include Escherichia coli (E. coli), Streptococcus agalactiae (S. agalactiae), Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus). These bacteria were found in milk and environmental condition such as feces, water, soil and so on. Recently, many cases of mastitis are derived from environmental contamination of micro-organisms, which important factors for the spread of this disease in farm. Ultraviolet irradiation (UV) has been used as disinfection for waste and water in clinical and industrial facilities. Moreover the UV irradiation has been used as useful bactericidal agents to remove bacterial biofilms in environmental condition. In this study, we determined the bacterial replication in different percentage of water content (PWC) in sterilized saw dust and feces complexes from farm, and results showed that slightly decreased growth pattern of E. coli and S. agalactiae but increased growth pattern of S. aureus in various PWC (200, 400 and 600%) until 144 h incubation. In the bacteriocidal effect of UV irradiation to bacteria in saw dust and feces complex, the results showed that bacteriocidal effect was depended on the UV irradiation time, irradiation distance and PWC. Especially the antibacterial activity of UV irratiation is stronger in low PWC (50%), long time irradiation (50 sec), and short distance (5 cm) than other condition of this study. Furthermore UV irradiation with stirring showed increased the bactericidal effect compared without stirring. These results suggested that bovine mastitis causing agents may survive long time in environmental condition especially saw dust and feces complexes in farm and can cause a various disease including mastitis. Moreover, these data can be used as basis for application and development of UV disinfection to control of bovine mastitis from environmental contaminated bacteria in dairy farm.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
• /
• v.27 no.4
• /
• pp.303-313
• /
• 2008

This research is aimed to investigate the cultivation method of oyster mushroom[Pleurotus ostreatus (Jacq. ex Fr.) Kummer] at the non-sterilized medium with $Ca(OH)_2$ treatment. Therefore, experiments were carried out to develop non-sterilization method of medium by addition of $Ca(OH)_2$ for omission of heat sterilization progress of medium. General components, minerals and amino acid in Jiri wild type No. 1 (Pleurotus ostreatus) and production cost were analyzed. For the purpose of omission of heat sterilization progress, treatment ratio of $Ca(OH)_2$ (purity 95%) was 5%(w/w) of dry medium. Initial pH of this medium was 11 and then the pH was changed by 9 after the uniform mixing of the medium for half an hour. The various germs occurred 50% and 100% at pH 8 and pH 7 of the non-sterilized medium, respectively. Production of oyster mushroom increased by $2,030\;ton\;ha^{-1}$ when the main raw material used corn pith instead of waste cotton. The time required of mycelium culture was 30 days when hypha was cultured at the non-sterilized medium, and pinhead occurred when 2 or 3 days was passed after the time required of mycelium culture. Occurrence of pinhead was most rapid at the condition of $22{\sim}26^{\circ}C$, 65% humidity and pH $6.5{\sim}7.0$ and required of $22{\sim}28$ days at $70{\sim}80\;mm$ thickness of non-sterilized medium. Ca content in 1st harvest oyster mushroom was higher than that in 2nd harvest one, and its difference was $30.3\;mg\;kg^{-1}$. Amino acid content by stipe thickness of oyster mushroom was ranged from 411.2 to $343.9\;mg\;kg^{-1}$ both in a pileus and a stipe of 1st harvest mushroom, and from 402.4 to $498.2\;mg\;kg^{-1}$ and from 442.6 to $470.4\;mg\;kg^{-1}$ in those of 2nd harvest one, respectively. The results of the present study suggest that the non-sterilization medium by addition of $Ca(OH)_2$ is usable with the cultivation of oyster mushroom.

• Resources Recycling
• /
• v.31 no.4
• /
• pp.56-65
• /
• 2022

Copper is one of the non-ferrous metals used in the electrical/electronic manufacturing industries due to its superior properties particularly the high conductivity and less resistivity. The effluent generated from the surface finishing process of these industries contains higher copper content which gets discharged in to water bodies directly or indirectly. This causes severe environmental pollution and also results in loss of an important valuable metal. To overcome this issue, continuous R & D activities are going on across the globe in adsorption area with the purpose of finding an efficient, low cost and ecofriendly adsorbent. In view of the above, present investigation was made to compare the performance of a plant root (Datura root powder) as a bio-adsorbent to that of the synthetic one (Tulsion T-42) for copper adsorption from such effluent. Experiments were carried out in batch studies to optimize parameters such as adsorbent dose, contact time, pH, feed concentration, etc. Results of the batch experiments indicate that 0.2 g of Datura root powder and 0.1 g of Tulsion T-42 showed 95% copper adsorption from an initial feed/solution of 100 ppm Cu at pH 4 in contact time of 15 and 30 min, respectively. Adsorption data for both the adsorbents were fitted well to the Freundlich isotherm. Experimental results were also validated with the kinetic model, which showed that the adsorption of copper followed pseudo-second order rate expression for the both adsorbents. Overall result demonstrates that the bio-adsorbent tested has a potential applicability for metal recovery from the waste solutions/effluents of metal finishing units. In view of the requirements of commercial viability and minimal environmental damage there from, Datura root powder being an effective material for metal uptake, may prove to be a feasible adsorbent for copper recovery after the necessary scale-up studies.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
• /
• v.37 no.4
• /
• pp.322-332
• /
• 2009

Five hundred strains of actinomycetes were screened for inhibitory activity against the phytopathogenic fungi; Alternaria alternata, Botryotinia fuckeliana, Colletotrichum acutatum, Colletotrichum gleosporioides, Corticium sasaki, Cylindrocarpon destructans, Fusarium oxysporium, Magnaporthe grisea, Phytophthora infestans, Phytium ultimum, and Thanatephorus cucumeris. The strain CNU-A91231 (Korea Agricultural Culture Collection #20938) showed a strong activity against the phytopathogenic fungi and it was identified as Streptomyces griseofuscus based on the sequence of 16s rDNA. Practical and simple media for the strain S. griseofuscus CNU-A91231 was developed at the conditions ($28^{\circ}C$ and pH 6 with aeration) for efficient bacterial growth. Alanine, glutamine, proline and ammonium ion were good nitrogen sources for the bacterium. Addition of the major salts including Na, Cl, Ca, P, K, and Mg into molasses did not increase the growth of S. griseofuscus. Addition of fertilizers containing amino acids significantly enhanced growth of the bacterium. The optimal medium was formulated as molasses + 1% of glutamate fermentation waste powder. All the conditions and components used in this study did not affect the antifungal activity of S. griseofuscus. The bacterium and the medium in this study can be used as a bio-antifungal agent for plant farming.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.18 no.5
• /
• pp.420-427
• /
• 2017

Recently, the depletion of fossil fuels, global warming and environmental pollution have emerged as a worldwide problem, and studies of new renewable energy sources have been progressed. Among the many renewable energy sources, the use of bio fuel has the potential to displace fossil fuels due to low price, easy to handle, and the abundant sources. Pyrolysis oil (PO) derived from waste wood and sawdust is considered an alternative fuel for use in diesel engines. On the other hand, PO is limited to diesel engines because of its low cetane number, high viscosity, high acidity, and low energy density. Therefore, to improve its poor properties, PO was mixed with alcohol fuels, such as ethanol. Early mixing with ethanol has the benefit of improving the storage and handling properties of the PO. Furthermore, a PO-ethanol blended fuel was injected separately, which can be fired through pilot-injected diesel in a dual-injection diesel engine. The experimental results showed that the substitution of diesel with blended fuel increases the amount of HC and CO, but reduces the NOx and PM significantly.

• Journal of environmental and Sanitary engineering
• /
• v.22 no.1 s.63
• /
• pp.1-16
• /
• 2007

The incineration process has commonly used for wastes amount reduction and thermal treatments of pollutants as the technologies accumulated. However, the process is getting negative public images owing to matter of hazardous pollutants emission. Specially dioxins became a main issue and is mostly emitted from municipal solid wastes incineration. In this reason, pyrolysis/gasfication/melting process is presented as a alternative of incineration process. The pyrolysis/gasfication/melting process, a novel technology, is middle of verification of commercial plant and development of technologies in Korea. But the survey about the pollutant emission from the process, and background data in these facilities is necessary. So in this survey, it Is investigated that the behavior of dioxins in three pyrolysis/gasfication/melting plant (S, T, P) of pilot scale. In case of S plant, concentration of dioxins shows high at latter part of cogenerated boiler and stack which are operate on low temperature conditions than a latter parts of pyrolysis and melting furnace which are operate on high temperature condition. Concentration of gas phage dioxins had increased after combusted gas passed cogenerated boiler and this is attributed to react of precursor materials such as chlorobenzene and chlorophenol. Concentration of dioxins in T plant showed lower levels at latter part of cooling equipment which are operate with water spray type on low temperature conditions than a latter parts of gasfied melting furnace which are operate on high temperature condition. Removal efficiency of dioxins at gas treatment equipment was 78.8 %. Concentration of dioxins in P plant was low at latter part of SDA/BF which is operate at low temperature conditions than a latter parts of pyrolysis gasfied chamber which are operate at high temperature condition. Removal efficiency of dioxins of SDA/BF was 85.9 % and therefore, it showed high efficiency at those of stoker type incineration facility. However, concentration of dioxins which emitted at high temperature condition were low in three facilities and satisfied present standard emission level of dioxins. To consider the distribution ratio of dioxins, Particulate phase dioxins at S and P plants showed similar ratio with which shows in current stoker type for middle scale domestic waste incineration facility. It is necessary to continuos monitoring the ratio of distribution of dioxins in T plant in because ratio of gas phage dioxins showed high.