• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.13-24
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• 2023

Sewage sludge has been widely used as an organic fertilizer in agriculture. However, sewage sludge can cause serious malodor problems resulting from the decomposition of organic compounds in anaerobic conditions. The malodor of sewage sludge mainly occurs due to a low carbon to nitrogen ratio (C/N), high moisture, and low temperature, which are ideal conditions for ammonia emissions. Therefore, in this study, we investigated the reduction of the odor-causing ammonia nitrogen (NH₃-N) in sewage sludge by co-application of microbes and methanol (MeOH). The physico-chemical properties of the municipal sewage sludge showed that the odor was mainly caused by a higher NH₃-N content (2932.2 mg L^-1). Supplementation with MeOH (20%) as a carbon source in the sewage sludge significantly reduced the NH₃-N up to 34.2% by increasing C/N ratio. Furthermore, the sewage sludge was treated with the NH₃-N reducing and plant growth promoting (PGP) bacteria Stenotrophomonas rhizophila SRCM 116907. The treatment with S. rhizophila SRCM 116907 significantly increased the seedling vigor index of Lolium perenne (10.3%) and Chrysanthemum burbankii (42.4%). The findings demonstrate that supplementing sewage sludge with methanol significantly reduces ammonia emissions, thereby mitigating malodor problems. Overall, the study highlights the potential of using a microbial and methanol approach to improve the quality of sewage sludge as an organic fertilizer and promote sustainable agriculture.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.30 no.7
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• pp.694-699
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• 2008

Considering the severe regulation associated with sludge treatment such as direct landfill and ocean dumping, there is no doubt in that an advanced study for the proper treatment of sludge is urgently needed in near feature. As one of viable method for sludge treatment, fry-drying of sludge by waste oil has been investigated in this study. The fundamental mechanism of this drying method lies in the phenomenon of rapid moisture escape in the sludge pore toward oil media. This is caused by the severe pressure gradient formed by the rapid oil heating between sludge and oil. As part of research effort of fry-drying using waste oil, a series of basic study has been made experimentally to obtain typical drying curves as function of important parameters such as drying temperature, drying time, oil type and geometrical shape of sludge formed. Based on this study, a number of useful conclusion can be drawn as following. The fry-drying method by oil immersion was found quite effective in the removal efficiency of sludge moisture, in general, the moisture content decreases significantly after 10 minutes and the whole moisture content was less than 5% after 14 minutes regardless of the drying temperature. The increase of oil temperature up to 140$^{\circ}C$ favors significantly for the removal of moisture but there was no visible difference above 140$^{\circ}C$. As expected, the decrease of diameter in sludge was efficient in drying due to the increased surface area per unit volume. Further, the effect of oil property by the change of oil type was noted. To be specific, for the case of engine oil the efficiency was found to be remarkably delayed in moisture evaporation compared with that of vegetable oil due to the increased viscosity of engine oil. It produced a result of increasing the evaporation of moisture largely relatively high in the drying temperature over 140$^{\circ}C$ compared with the drying temperature 120$^{\circ}C$ drying temperature as the drying time passed. Accordingly, the drying temperature is considered desirable as keeping over 140$^{\circ}C$ regardless of a sort of used oil.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.253-262
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• 2019

This paper described the evaluation results on unconfined compressive strength characteristics of CLSM with paper sludge ash, in order to develop a CLSM that can prevent sewer pipe damage. The flowability test and the unconfined compressive strength test were performed according to mix design condition of CLSM. The flowability test result showed that the water content, which can satisfy the flowability criteria, was 24% to 32% according to the mix design condition. The results of unconfined compressive strength test showed that the strength incremental ratio was high between 1 and 7 days of curing time, and the strength at this time was more than about 50% of the strength at 28 days of curing time. The strength of CLSM was greatly influenced by fly ash. However, it was analyzed that the mixture of paper sludge ash is required when the reference strength of CLSM is considered. Although the strength of the high cement ratio was higher than that of the low cement, a cement ratio of 5% would be a reasonable mix design condition of CLSM.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.409-419
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• 2023

Acid mine drainage(AMD) treatment is classified as both passive and active treatment. During the treatment, about 5,000 tons of neutralization sludge is generated as a by-product per year in Korea. This study was conducted to evaluate the characteristics of sludge generated from physico·chemical treatment processes as an active treatment from 5 different sources (D, H, S, T, Y) and the possibility of the sludges being recycled. The sludges have a pH range of 5.86 ~ pH 7.89, and a water content range of 51% ~ 82%. Most of particle sizes were less than 25 ㎛. In analysis of inorganic elements, the concentration of Al, Fe, and Mn were between 1,189 mg/kg ~ 129,344 mg/kg, 106,132 mg/kg ~ 338,011 mg/kg, and 3,472 mg/kg ~ 11,743 mg/kg, respectively. The concentration of As and Zn in sludge-T, Cd in sludge-D, Ni in sludge-H, Zn in sludge-S, and Cd in sludge-Y exceeded the soil contamination standards of Korea. The results from 2 separate kinds of leaching test, the Korea Standard Leaching Test(KSLT) and Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure(TCLP), showed that all the sludges met the Korea groundwater standards. From the XRD and SEM-EDS analysis, the peaks of calcite and quartz were found in the sludges. The sludge also had a high proportion of Fe and O, and the majority of the composition was amorphous iron hydroxide.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.15 no.4 s.72
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• pp.36-43
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• 2006

There was some difficulty dewatering properties due to small porosity diameter of cake, when pigment sludge contained fine particle was formed by cake under the dewatering. It was difficult to dewater the sludge with fine particles with the conventional mechanical dewatering method. This study was to improve the dewatering rate as discharging the water from porosity of cake easily, supplying the low heat to the cake layer. Thermal dewatering equipment of piston type to keep up constant temperature on the cake was set up and relative experiment was conducted for sludge of 200 g with fine pigment particle. As test results. filtration of 176.8 g, cake weight of 19.4 g, cake thickness of 4.2 mm was measured, and it was analyzed that the water content of cake was 47 wt% and dewatering velocity, which moaned the residual d교 sloid amount per dewatering area, was $2.1DS\;m^{2}{\cdot}cycle$. This results showed that filtration increased, cake weight and thickness decreased and dewatering velocity increased against mechanical dewatering method. And water content of cake decreased about 30%, so the result which dewatering rate improved was drew generally. The reason is that the inner vapor pressure working at the cake porosity increased as applying the low heat to the cake layer, which lead to discharge the water from porosity easily. Therefore, this study was estimated by the useful technology for sludge reduction.

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

• Clean Technology
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.74-80
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• 2019

Thermochemical treatment of sewage sludge is an energy-intensive process due to its high moisture content. To save the energy consumed during the process, the hydrothermal carbonization process for sewage sludge can be used to convert sewage sludge into clean solid fuel without pre-drying. This study is aimed to investigate co-firing characteristics of the hydrothermally carbonated sewage sludge (HCS) to a pulverized coal combustion system. The purpose of the measurement is to measure the pollutants produced during co-firing and combustion efficiency. The combustion system used in this study is a furnace with a down-firing swirl burner of a $80kW_{th}$ thermal input. Two sub-bituminous coals were used as a main fuel, and co-firing ratio of the sewage sludge was varied from 0% to 10% in a thermal basis. Experimental results show that $NO_x$ is 400 ~ 600 ppm, $SO_x$ is 600 ~ 700 ppm, and CO is less than 100 ppm. Experimental results show that stable combustion was achieved for high co-firing ratio of the HCS. Emission of $NO_x$ and $SO_x$ was decreased for higher co-firing ratio in spite of the higher nitrogen contents in the HCS. In addition, it was found that the pollutant emission is affected significantly by composition of the main fuel, regardless of the co-firing ratios.

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.313-319
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• 2015

This study relates to an investigation into semi-dry manufacturing process of BP sludge based on non-heating production method. In this study, we conducted a research into reduction of water content ratio which arose from mixture of BP by-products of high water content ratio(50% or higher) with industrial by-products to use such BP by-products as construction materials in large quantity. We measured the reduction rate of water content ratio at the feeding ratio of water content reduction agent(1:0.5) in BP by-products. The results showed that water content ratio was the lowest with 18.5% in the mixture of PA+CFA(1:0.5). Moreover, water content ratio ranged between approximately 9.2% and 11.4% at the age of 1 day to 2 days at the aging temperature of $20-30^{\circ}C$, suggesting that the water content ratio was in the range within 10% which was a level suitable for use as construction material in this study. Meanwhile, we compared and evaluated the physical properties of non-heated BP by-products based on post-aging pulverization method. The results showed that there was no significant difference, depending on pulverization method. When production efficiency and economic feasibility were taken into consideration, it was found desirable to use fine particle pulverizer or pin mill enabling continuous production.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.131-143
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• 2018

Phosphorus (P) is a limited, essential, and irreplaceable nutrient for the biological activity of all the living organisms. Sewage sludge ash (SSA) is one of the most important secondary P resources due to its high P content. The SSA has been intensively investigated to recover P by wet chemicals (acid or alkali). Even though $H_2SO_4$ was mainly used to extract P because of its low cost and accessibility, the formation of $CaSO_4$ (gypsum) hinders its use. Heavy metals in the SSA also cause a significant problem in P recovery since fertilizer needs to meet government standards for human health. Therefore, P recovery process with selective heavy metal removal needs to be developed. In this paper some of the most advanced P recovery processes have been introduced and discussed their technical characteristics. The results showed that further research is needed to identify the chemical mechanisms of P transformation in the recovery process and to increase P recovery efficiency and the yields.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.5-17
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• 2021

This study is a literature review on the recovering phosphorus from Incinerated Sewage Sludge Ash(ISSA), which has relatively high content of phosphorus. Experimental conditions and influencing factors related to the recovery of P and removal of heavy metals by wet and thermochemical methods were discussed. For the practical application of the recovery of P from ISSA, an integrated process linked to incineration facilities is required in terms of economy from the perspective of the entire system including disposal of wastewater and residues generated during the recovery process, and minimizing added chemicals and energy consumption.