• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.597-603
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• 1996

This study was carried out to examine degradation characteristics of microalgae Chlorella vulgaris in methane fermentation. We measured COD and VS reduction, gas and methane productivity, VFA (volatile fatty acid), respectively. Then we calculated material balance and hydrolysis rates in soluble and solid material. The substrate concentration was controlled from 14 gCOD$_{cr}$/l to 64 gCOD$_{cr}$/l in batch cultures, and HRT (hydraulic retention time) controlled from 2 days to 30 days in continuous experi- ments. The results were as follows. In batch culture, accumulated gas productivity increased with the increase of the substrate concentration. The SS and VSS was removed all about 30% increase of substrate concentration and the most of the degradable material removed during the first 10 days. The curve of gas and methane production rate straightly increased until substrate concentration is 26 gCOD$_{cr}$/l. In continuous culture experiments, the removal rates at HRT 10days were 20% for total COD and TOC, respectively. At longer HRT, there was no increase in the removal efficiency. At HRT 15 days, the removal rates were 30% for SS and VSS, respectively. Soluble organic materials were rapidly degraded, and so there was no accumulated. Soluble COD concentration was not increase regardless of HRT-increasing. That meaned the hydrolysis was one of the rate-limiting stage of methane fermentation. The first-order rate constants of hydrolysis were 0.23-0.28 day$^{-1}$ for VSS, and 0.07-0.08 day$^{-1}$ for COD.

• 한국연소학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2012.04a
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• pp.29-31
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• 2012

The effects of combustion parameters on the characteristics of a steam-methane reformer. The reformer system was numerically simulated using a simplified two-dimensional axisymmetric model domain with an appropriate user-defined function. The fuel ratio, defined as the ratio of methane flow rate in the combustor to that in the reactor, was varied from 20 to 80%. The equivalence ratio was changed from 0.5 to 1.0. The results indicated that as the fuel ratio increased, the production rates of hydrogen and carbon monoxide increased, although their rates of increase diminished. In fact, at the highest heat supply rates, hydrogen production was actually slightly decreased. Simulations showed that equivalence ratio of 0.7 yielded the highest steam-methane mixture temperature despite a 43% higher air flow rate than the stoichiometric flow rate. This means that the production of hydrogen and carbon monoxide can be increased by adjusting the equivalence ratio, especially when the heat supply is insufficient.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.69-73
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• 2016

Generation of food waste is a serious issue that needs to be addressed worldwide. Developing suitable treatment methods while generating energy (methane) is a common practice for sustainable treatment of waste. In this study, methane generation by food waste was investigated in mesophilic and thermophilic regimes at various hydraulic retention times (HRTs) and organic loading rates (OLR). In temperature regimes, influent concentrations and HRTs ranged from 30 to 110 g COD/L and 18 to 30 days, respectively, which corresponding to an OLR of 1.0 to $6.1kg\;COD/m^3-d$. Better methane production and organic removal was observed under thermophilic conditions because of the enhanced hydrolysis of complex polymers and microbial activity at higher temperature. The peak methane productivities attained in thermophilic and mesophilic regimes were 1.30 and $0.99m^3/m^3-d$, respectively. The maximum methane yields were achieved at 50 g COD/L and HRT of 24 d in both cases, and the values were 264 and $221m^3/ton$ COD, respectively. The results of this study will facilitate the development of sustainable methane production technologies using food waste as a feedstock.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.499-509
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• 2000

Next to carbon dioxide, methane is the second largest contributor to global warming among anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Methane is emitted into the atmosphere from both natural and anthropogenic sources. Natural sources include wetlands, termites, wildries, ocean and freshwater. Anthropogenic sources include landfill, natural gas and oil production, and agriculture. These manmade sources account for about 70% of total global methane emissions; and among these, landfill accounts for approximately 10% of total manmade emissions. Solid waste landfills produce methane as bacteria decompose organic wastes under anaerobic conditions. Methane accounts for approximately 45 to 50 percent of landfill gas, while carbon dioxide and small quantities of other gases comprise the remaining to 50 to 55 percent. Using the closed enclosure technique, surface emission fluxes of methane from the selected landfill sites were measured. These data were used to estimate national methane emission rate from domestic landfills. During the three different periods, flux experiments were conducted at the sites from June 30 through December 26, 1999. The chamber technique employed for these experiments was validated in situ. Samples were collected directly by on-site flux chamber and analyzed for the variation of methane concentration by gas chromatography equipped with FID. Surface emission rates of methane were found out to vary with space and time. Significant seasonal variation was observed during the experimental period. Methane emission rates were estimated to be 64.5$\pm$54.5mgCH$_4$/$m^2$/hr from Kimpo landifll site. 357.4$\pm$68.9mgCH$_4$/$m^2$/hr and 8.1$\pm$12.4mgCH$_4$/$m^2$/hr at KwanJu(managed and unmanaged), 472.7$\pm$1056mgCH$_4$/$m^2$/hr at JonJu, and 482.4$\pm$1140 mgCH$_4$/$m^2$/hr at KunSan. These measurement data were used for the extrapolation of national methane emission rate based on 1997 national solid waste data. The results were compared to those derived by theoretical first decay model suggested by IPCC guidelines.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.306-313
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• 2014

BACKGROUND: Forest soils contain microbes capable of consuming atmospheric methane ($CH_4$), an amount matching the annual increase in $CH_4$ concentration in the atmosphere. However, the effect of plant residue production by different forest structure on $CH_4$ oxidation is not studied in Korea. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of Korean alpine soils having different forestation structure on $CH_4$ uptake rates. METHODS AND RESULTS: the $CH_4$ flux was measured at three sites dominated with pine, chestnut and oak trees in southern Korea. The $CH_4$ uptake potentials were evaluated by a closed chamber method for a year. The $CH_4$ uptake rate was the highest in the pine tree soil ($1.05mg/m^2/day$) and then followed by oak ($0.930mg/m^2/day$) and chestnut trees ($0.497mg/m^2/day$). The $CH_4$ uptake rates were highly correlated to soil organic matter and moisture contents, and total microbial and methanotrophs activities. Different with the general concent, there was no any correlation between $CH_4$ oxidation rates, and soil temperature and labile carbon concentrations, irrespective with tree species. CONCLUSION: Conclusively, the methane oxidation rate was correlated in positive manner with organic matter, abundance of methanotrophs. Methane oxidation was different among tree species. This results could be used to estimate methane oxidation rate in forest of Korea after complementing information about statistical data and methane oxidation of other site.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.37-42
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• 2011

The main objective of this study was to evaluate the current condition of harbor sediments and to estimate biochemical methane potentials from the harbor sediments. Sediment samples were collected from 10 different sampling sites. Ignition loss, elemental analyses, X-ray diffraction(XRD), X-ray fluorescence(XRF) tests were conducted to determine characteristics of the sediment. All sediments had similar elemental compositions and ignition loss were 8~10%. From the conventional BMP tests for 5 samples, cumulative methane production ranged from 11.9~15.5mL methane/(g of volatile solids), which were significantly lower than that for foods and paper. However, methane production rates for sediments were 5 to 20 times faster than those for foods and paper.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.49-54
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• 2011

This study was conducted to evaluate the performance of methane fermentation from effluent of hydrogen fermentation reactor in anaerobic baffled reactor (ABR) and anaerobic sequencing batch reactor (ASBR). Two reactors were operated at organic loading rate of $1.0kg\;COD/m^3{\cdot}d$ and hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 20 day. Methane production rates of ABR and ASBR for start-up periods were 0.04 L/L/d and 0.19 L/L/d, respectively, whereas maximum methane production rates of ABR and ASBR were 0.25 L/L/d and 0.31 L/L/d, respectively. Removal rates of chemical oxygen demand (COD) in ABR and ASBR for start-up periods were 89% and 92%, respectively. After startup periods, removal rates of COD and volatile solids (VS) in ABR and ASBR were maintained over 90%. The specific methanogenic activity (SMA) increased as microorganism acclimated to the substrate.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.75-82
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• 2016

Objective of this experiment was to predict the potential methane production with crop residues at different loading rates. Anaerobic digestion of barley and rapeseed straw substrates for biogas production was performed in Duran bottles at various biomass loading rates with crop residues. Through kinetic model of surface methodology, the methane production was fitted to a Gompertz equation. For the biogas production at mesophilic digestion with crop residues, it was observed that maximum yield was 37.2 and 28.0 mL/g at 6.8 and 7.5 days after digestion with 1% biomass loading rates of barley and rapeseed straws, respectively. For the methane content of mesophilic digestion, there were highest at 61.7% after 5.5 days and 75.0% after 3.4 days of digestion with barley and rapeseed straw on both 5% biomass loading rates, respectively. The maximum methane production potentials were 159.59 mL/g for 1% barley straw and 156.62 mL/g for 3% rapeseed straw at mesophilic digestion. Overall, it would be strongly recommended that biomass loading rate was an optimum rate at mesophilic digestion for using 1% barley and 3% rapeseed straws for feed stocks.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.59-66
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• 2000

Effects of carbon dioxide partial pressure(PCO2) on bacterial population, methane production rate and matter degradation in anaerobic digestion were investigated by using anaerobic chemostat type reactors at 35$\pm$1$^{\circ}C$, at the HRT of 7 days. At PCO2 of 0.5 atm, the specific methane production rate and specific substrate removal rate reached the maximum rates. The methane production rates in the reactors fed by mixed substrate were 26% higher than those obtained under the controlled condition. The number of acetate consuming methanogenic bacteria enumerated by the MPN(most probable number) method, decreased when PCO2 exceeded 0.7 atm. Hydrogen consuming methanogenic bacteria and homoacetogenic bacteria increased as PCO2 increased from 0.1 to 0.6 atm, however, decreased slightly at PCO2 above 0.7 atm. The number of hydrolytic bacteria, sulfate-reducing bacteria and H2-producing acetogenic bacterial were not much influenced by the change of PCO2. The potential methanogenic activity reached the maximum at PCO2 0.5 atm, however, decreased significantly when PCO2 exceeded 0.7 atm, would depend on free PCO2 concentration in solution.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.41-45
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• 1997

This study was conducted to investigate methane production, emission and diffusion under organic matter application in paddy soil (Jeonbug Series). The rates of application of rice straw were 5,000kg/ha in combination with 110kg N/ha as chemical fertilizer. In seasonal variations of the $CH_4$ emission rates two maxima were found during the ear formation stage and the heading stage of the rice plant. Entrapped methane increased dining the early growing season, declined thereafter and especially increased during the heading stage. Methane concentration in the soil solution was the higest at 5cm depth, but decreased with upper and lower depth. The gas diffusion rate of $CH_4$ was very slow in the liquid phase. Eh of soil solution varied from -150~-160mV and methane prodution rate was highly correlated with Eh.