• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.155-160
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• 2005

Gravity thickening process has been widely used in WTP sludge thickening at domestic water treatment plant. The operation method of the process is very simple, however, the process requires long detention time about 24~48 hours for sludge thickening, uses polymer, and low total solids of thickened sludge to increase sludge thickening efficiency. To solve there problems, we studied about flotation process, especially, electro-flotation (EF) process in WTP sludge thickening. Electro-flotation process is simpler than dissolved-air-flotation(DAF) process because EF needs only electrode and current to generate micro-bubbles and the operation is easy. This study was performed at two batch columns to compare interface height, total solids, effluent turbidity between an electro-flotation thickening and a gravity thickening. According to the result, an electro-flotation thickening was that interface height was decreasing, total solids had high concentration, and effluent turbidity was low in comparison with a gravity thickening. Also, it will make the high efficiency of following process, such as a dehydrating process and digestive process. because of high total solids and low moisture content in the sludge.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.699-706
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• 2007

Many lakes or irrigative reservoirs in Korea are rapidly contaminated due to the ever increasing pollutants. Although lots of treatment processes have been recommended and practiced, economical and technical improvement is currently needed. In this study, contaminated irrigation reservoir was treated using the proposed process which is consisted of fine air bubbles, coagulation and flotation. Fine bubbles, approximate diameter of 3 to $10{\mu}m$, were generated using cavitation in the pressurized tank and polyaluminum chloride was used as coagulants. This fine bubbles, coagulation and flotation effectively controlled the low density algae, for example, Chlorophyll-a was removed more than 97 %. Removal efficiency of COD, SS, T-N and T-P were 80.7%, 94.3%, 64.1 % and 92.4%, respectively. Pollutants released from the sediments was removed more than 80% of organics and 60-70 % of nutrients. Consequently, fine bubbles coagulation and flotation process could be effectively used as an alternative treatment method for the purpose of control of lake water quality.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.447-452
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• 2011

In this study, the polymeric membrane module is used as a diffuser and an image analysis technique based on visual information is applied to get bubble characteristics. The bubble size generated passed through polymeric membrane module was smaller from 30 to 64% than that of air stone, and bubble volume over 70% was ranged from 0.2 to 0.82 mm. But over 80% the bubbles from air stone diffuser ranged from 0.77 to 1.08 mm. The air stone and polymeric membrane module used as diffuser for a flotation system. The floc size inside the flotation reactor using air stone diffuser was bigger than that of the polymeric membrane module, which means that the micro-bubbles generated from polymeric membrane module could provide better opportunities for collisions between colloidal particles than those from air stone diffuser. Therefore, there is a possibility to apply the polymeric membrane module as a diffuser to increase the removal efficiency in the flotation process. Also, the image analysis technique used in this study could be applied as a useful analytical tool for acquisition of an information about the bubble characteristic.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.39 no.7
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• pp.617-624
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• 2015

The dissolved air flotation (DAF) system is a water treatment process that removes contaminants by attaching micro bubbles to them, causing them to float to the water surface. In the present study, two-phase flow of air-water mixture is simulated to investigate changes in the internal flow analysis of DAF systems caused by using different turbulence models. Internal micro bubble distribution, velocity, and computation time are compared between several turbulence models for a given DAF geometry and condition. As a result, it is observed that the standard ${\kappa}-{\varepsilon}$ model, which has been frequently used in previous research, predicts somewhat different behavior than other turbulence models.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.222-227
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• 2004

Flotation processes involve the use of very small bubbles (micro-bubbles) to separate particles from water. The process has become a good alternative to sedimentation, especially where the particles are small or of low density. Although the flotation process commences with a collision between particles and bubbles, most research has been focused only on the characteristics of the particles. In this paper, recent theoretical and experimental research on the characteristics of bubbles is summarized. The effect on the collision efficiency of the size and charge of bubbles is calculated through trajectory analysis. The size and charge of bubbles are measured under different conditions and the ramifications of the results are discussed. The results may lead to a better understanding and optimization of the existing process. In particular, we discuss an idea that a new advanced flotation process might be possible by the modification of the characteristics of the bubble alone or of both bubble and particle.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.767-774
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• 2005

The DOF (Dissolved Ozone Flotation) system was used to treat the effluent of the secondary wastewater treatment plant. The DOF system uses ozone instead of air, while DAF (Dissolved Air Flotation) uses air. Moreover, since the solubility of ozone is higher than air, the DOF system produces larger volume of micro-bubbles than the DAF system does. Thus, the DOF system performs better than the DAF system in floating ability. The DOF system could remove 70% of turbidity to an average of 0.59NTU in effluent from 2.31NTU in influent. The removal efficiency of absorbance measured with UV-254 in the effluent of the DOF system was 63%, while only 19% was removed by the DAF system. the DOF system removed 84% of the color from 25~26CU to 4CU, while DAF system removed 42% of the color to 15 CU. The CODMn removal efficiency of the DOF system was 34%, 6.8mg/l of effluent $COD_{Mn}$ concentratin, while it was 20%, 8.3mg/L of effluent $COD_{Mn}$ concentratin, to use the DAF system. Microbial bacteria such as coliform bacteria, and heterotrophic bacteria were removed over 99% by the DOF system, and 42~45% by the DAF system. That is, Microbial bacteria were almost completely destroyed by the DOF system. To sum up with, the DOF system was found to be very effective to treat effluent of the wastewater treatment plant.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.663-669
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• 2002

Electro-flotation (EF) has shown advantages, such as a high removal efficiency and easy control of bubble generation, over dissolved air flotation. However, the fundamental characteristics of the process have not been investigated in detail. According to recent modeling results from trajectory analysis, the size of the bubble is one of the most important factors that affect the efficiency of collision between bubble and particle. In this paper, the size characteristics of bubbles generated from EF under various conditions are measured using a new method for bubble size measurement, the Particle Counter Method (PCM). The size of the generated bubbles was found to be constant with respect to applied voltage but to vary with the electrode materials. These results and their implications are discussed.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.35 no.10
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• pp.737-742
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to remove sediments obtained from breeding ground using supersonics and micro-air flotation method. Sediments from Tongyong breeding grounds showed no contaminations of heavy metals but had great amount of organics. Thus, efficient removal of sediments was required to preserve water quality near breeding ground. Supersonics treatment for sediments was determined to be essential because higher removal efficiency of sediments was obtained when supersonics treatment was used. In addition, application of coagulants increased removal efficiency because its usage increased particle size of sediments, which enabled easy trapping of sediments particle into micro-air bubbles. Removal efficiency of sediments slightly decreased from 95.8% (1 g/L) to 83.9% (8 g/L) at the tests for different amount of sediments, but most of tiny particles were removed from water where sand size particles were left in the bottom of reactors.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.14 no.8
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• pp.23-27
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• 2013

In this study, efficiency of pre-treatment of turbid seawater was measured where micro-air bubbles were used to remove particles in seawater after input of natural coagulant PGA. Artificial seawater was prepared having the intended trubidity using marine sediments and microalgae. 73.7% of turbidity removal was achieved when 0.5g/L of $AlCl_3{\cdot}6H_2O$ was added in the artificial seawater, but 92.4% of turbidity removal was observed when 0.05g/L of PGA was added in the artificial seawater containing microalgae. In addition, much greater turbidity removal was achieved for microalage than sediments. For both cases, input of 0.1g/L PGA and following additional input of micro-air bubbles for 5 seconds resulted in the maximum removal efficiency where reaction time of coagulation was 1 min and flotation by micro-air bubbles was 10 min. From this study, we concluded that micro-air floation after coagulation could be a possible economical pre-treatment method for highly turbid seawater.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.107-113
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• 2012

Pollutants in aquaculture system effluent mostly originated from solid wastes including uneaten feed and excreta of cultured species. In this research, DAF(Dissolved Air Flotation) unit is suggested as an integrated solid control unit especially as a form of IIBG(Inline Injection Bubble Generation) process in aquaculture system. Solid removal performance of DAF unit was examined under various operation and salinity conditions with turbidity and suspended solid. Solid waste removal efficiencies were found to be affected by operation conditions including saturator pressure, recycle ratio, coagulant concentration. Solid removal efficiency was higher under higher saturator pressure and recycle ratio under which condition larger number of bubbles is generated. Coagulant is thought to have important role in creating bubble-particle aggregate by showing better removal efficiency with higher concentration. However higher saline water showed less effectiveness in removing solids by DAF(IIBG). Application of DAF(IIBG) process also showed additional effect in phosphate removal and DO(Dissolved Oxygen) supply. Phosphate existed in polluted water was removed up to 46% after treatment, which is thought to attribute to aluminium phosphate precipitation. And DO concentration was found to increase over 50% of initial saturation concentration after the injection of micro-bubbles. Through experiments on solid removal from aquaculture effluent, DAF(IIBG) process is estimated to be effective solid control method. This property can help aquaculture system being installed and operated simply and effectively.