• Journal of The Korean Society of Clinical Toxicology
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.47-53
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• 2016

Purpose: Intentional poisoning is a major public health issue in many parts of the world. This study was conducted to provide details regarding the epidemiology of intentional poisoning in a metropolitan emergency department and to identify the changing patterns and epidemiology of poisoning. Methods: A retrospective study was conducted to evaluate intentional poisoning of patients who visited the emergency department in a tertiary teaching hospital between 2001 and 2015. All intentional poisoning-related emergency department visits over three five year periods (2001-2005 (P1), 2006-2010 (P2) and 2011-2015 (P3)) were reviewed to investigate trends in intentional poisoning patients. Information regarding patient sex, age, time from episode to admission, psychiatric history, type of intoxicants, alcohol co-ingestion, gastric lavage, charcoal administration, any previous suicide attempts, need for hospitalization and death before discharge was reviewed. Results: A total of 1269 patients were enrolled in this study. The number of patients admitted during each period was P1=515, P2=439 and P3=315. Comparison of the three groups revealed significant differences according to age (p<0.001), psychiatric history (p<0.001), alcohol co-ingestion (p=0.013), gastric lavage (p<0.001), charcoal administration (p<0.001), need for hospitalization (p=0.044), repeated attempt (p<0.001) and type of intoxicants (p<0.001). Conclusion: The average age of intentional poisoning patients has increased. While the use of sedatives and multiple drugs increased, the use of pesticides and the antihistamine decreased.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Clinical Toxicology
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.80-85
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• 2012

Purpose: The aim of this study was to describe the epidemiologic characteristics of adult patients with carbon monoxide poisoning who presented to the emergency department in recent years. Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study on adult consecutive patients with carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning who presented to the emergency department of a tertiary care university-affiliated hospital from January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2011. Results: A total of 91 patients were included in this study; there were 56(61.5%) unintentional and 35(38.5%) intentional poisonings. For the unintentional CO poisonings, the principal sources of exposure to CO were fire (39.3%), charcoal (17.9%), briquette charcoal (7.1%), wood burning boiler (7.1%), gas boiler (5.4%), automobile heater (3.6%), briquette boiler (3.6%), firewood (3.6%), and other items (12.5%). For the intentional CO poisonings, the sources were ignition charcoal (60.0%), briquette (31.4%), charcoal (5.7%) and butane gas (2.9%). For the unintentional CO poisonings, the places of poisoning were the home (58.9%), workplace (10.7%), public accommodation (8.9%), tent (8.9%), automobile (3.6%) and parking place (1.8%). For the intentional CO poisonings, the places of poisoning were the home (77.1%), public accommodation (11.4%) and automobile (11.4%). The proportion of intentional CO poisonings among total poisonings has increased significantly in recent years; 0.0% in 2008, 3.3% in 2009, 5.5% in 2010, and 29.7% in 2011. Conclusion: This study showed that in recent years in Korea, the source of CO has diversified broadly and intentional CO poisonings from burning ignition charcoal or briquettes has increased. Prevention efforts should consider these factors.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.11 no.1 s.34
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• pp.51-54
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• 2007

78-cell proton exchange membrane fuel cell(PEMFC) stack with an effective electrode area of $295cm^{2}$ were investigated its operational characteristics and effects of CO poisoning. When power output, 5.4 kW, was released at current density of $325mA/cm^{2}$ for 6 hours, stablility of each cell was showed the small deviation of 2.3%. Carbon monoxide is a conventional contaminant in the fuel obtained from reforming processes with an important influence on the performance of the PEMFC. The studies of continuous injection of CO presented (5-20 ppm) with the time gave information about poisoning and recovery processes of the stack.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.503-509
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• 2016

Fuel cell is a device for producing electricity by using the hydrogen produced by the fuel processor. At this time, CO is also created by the fuel processor. The resulting CO enters the stack where is produce electricity and leads to the adsorption of anode catalyst, finally the CO poisoning occurs. Stack which occurred CO poisoning has a reduction in performance and shelf life are gradually fall because they do not respond to hydrogen. In this paper, experiments that using a PROX reactor to prevent CO poisoning were carried out for removing the CO concentration to less than 10ppm range available in the fuel cell. Furthermore experiments by the PROX reaction was designed and manufactured with a water-cooling heat exchange reactor to maintain a suitable temperature control due to the strong exothermic reaction.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Clinical Toxicology
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.102-107
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• 2018

Purpose: This study examined the association between smoking and delayed neuropsychological sequelae (DNS) in acute carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning. Methods: Patients admitted to the medical center emergency department from March 2016 to March 2017 because of CO poisoning were examined retrospectively. The patients were divided into two groups: DNS and Non-DNS group. Multiple factors were analyzed to explain DNS, which was assessed by motor disturbances, cognitive impairment, dysphagia, Parkinson-like syndromes, epilepsy, and emotional lability in CO poisoning. Results: A total of 120 patients were included. The factors related to DNS were smoking (pack-years) (p=0.002) and initial carbon monoxide-hemoglobin level (p=0.015). On the other hand, after multivariate logistic regression analysis, smoking (Odds ratio 1.07; 95% CI, 1.02-1.13; p=0.004) was the only factor associated with DNS. Conclusion: Smoking is a very reliable factor for predicting the occurrence of DNS. A history of smoking in patients who suffer from CO intoxication is important. If a patient smokes, treatment should be started actively and as soon as possible.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.26-30
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• 2011

Instantaneous water heater being not properly installed and not adequately maintained may produce fatal accidents due to carbon monoxide poisoning and suffocation. Insufficient supply of air into the gas appliance for complete burning of the fuel or blocking the outlet of the combustion gas could be a cause to increase carbon monoxide concentration in the exhaust gas of the gas appliance. In this work, the experiments are done with a collected instantaneous water heater using in domestic and the concentration of oxygen near the gas appliance and carbon monoxide in exhaust gas are observed to investigate the risk of instantaneous water heater. The concentration of oxygen near the gas appliance is reduced until 17.7% for the ratio of the ventilation area and floor area being 3.5%. If the outlet of combustion gas is blocked, the carbon monoxide concentration is steeply increasing more than 4,000ppm. Therefore, periodic checking the outlet of combustion gas is more important than vent area to reduce the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Clinical Toxicology
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.116-123
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• 2018

Purpose: The social environment of easy access to medicines and arbitrary personal decisions leading to overdose aggravate unintentional medicine poisoning. This study aimed to investigate the characteristics of patients who visited emergency departments with unintentional medicine poisoning and reasons for poisoning based on age group. Methods: We retrospectively collected patients who experienced unintentional medicine poisoning based on data from the national injury surveillance system between 2013 and 2016. Subjects were classified into three groups based on age (0-14 years, 15-64 years, and ${\geq}65\;years$). We identified sex, insurance, time of poisoning, place, alcohol co-ingestion, hospitalization, death, and reason for poisoning in each age group. Results: A total of 27,472 patients visited an emergency department with poisoning during the study period; 1,958 patients who experienced unintentional poisoning were enrolled in this study. Respiratory medicine was the most frequent medicine in those younger than 15 years of age, and sedatives and antipsychotic drugs were the most common in patients older than 15 years of age. In total, 35.1% of patients older than 65 years were hospitalized. The most common reasons for poisoning were careless storage of medicine in those younger than 15 years of age and overdose due to arbitrary decisions in those older than 15 years of age. Conclusion: Unintentional medicine poisoning has distinct characteristics based on age group, and strategies to prevent poisoning should be approached differently based on age.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.180-183
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• 2007

CO in the reformed gas for proton exchange membrane fuel cell(PEMFC) has a strong tendency to adsorb on the surface of the catalyst and thus to block the sites that hydrogen needs for reactions. Even part per million levels of CO can cause serious poisoning. This CO poisoning can overcome to bleed trace amounts of air into the anode. In this study, we indicated the alteration of stack performance in various CO concentration and then bled a small amount of air. The performance of stack was reduced by increasing CO amount, and recovered by air bleeding. But the air-bleeding have an impact on performance of anode should be further explored.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.670-676
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• 2016

Hydrogen town in Republic of Korea was established in 2013. Hydrogen as a byproduct produced by various processes of factories is used in hydrogen town facilities. As cell performance is affected by contaminations in fuel gas, various standards about impurities of fuel have been determined by many countries. This study shows performance degradation of single cell with impurities concentrations. Traces of carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen sulfide ($H_2S$)can cause considerable cell performance losses. For comparing the performances by poisoning of CO, acceleration test, I-V curve, constant current are performed. Both the CO and $H_2S$ poisoning rate are a function of their concentration. With the higher concentrations the higher poisoning rates are observed. And, it was confirmed that, oxidation behavior and side reaction generation are not affected. Under the lower $H_2S$ concentration condition, the poisoning rate is much higher than that of CO because of its different adsorption intensity. It can be possible that the result of this study can be used for enacting regulation as a baseline data.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.95-105
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• 1971

Carbon monoxide poisoning is one of the most serious health hazards in Korea. Although the incidence rate has been assumed to be the highest in the world, there has been no avaiable reports as far as the annual & nation-wide incidence are concered. Authors analyzed the incidence reports from 1965 to 1970 filed by the National Police & also made incidence survey on Seoul area in 1968 & 1969. The results of these surveys informed us that the official police reports are very much underevaluated. The stochastic estimations of the generel incidence were made based on the informations which were obtained through incidence survey made in Seoul area. The findings obtained are as follows; 1. The annual incidence of CO poisoning tends to increase since 1965. 2. The incidence is higher in the urban area & the incidence in Seoul is the highest in the world. 3. The frequency of incidence is the highest in the December. 4. The main causes of poisoning are the gas leakage from 'ondol' floor & the leaking of gas from kitchen to room through the connecting door. 5. The incidence survey made in Seoul area revealed that the official police reports are underevaluated around one-eighth of actual incidence. 6. The health hazards induced by CO poisoning is greater than those caused by 19 Class I & Class II communicable diseases.