• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.57-63
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• 2015

Recently, Korea's municipal wastewater treatment plants generated amount of wastewater sludge per day. However, ocean dumping of sewage sludge has been prohibited since 2012 by the London dumping convention and protocol and thus removal or treatment of wastewater sludge from field sites is an important issue on the ground site. The hydrothermal carbonization is one of attractive thermo-chemical method to upgrade sewage sludge to produce solid fuel with benefit method from the use of no chemical catalytic. Hydrothermal carbonization improved that the upgrading fuel properties and increased materials and energy recovery, which is conducted at temperatures ranging from 200 to $350^{\circ}C$ with a reaction time of 30 min. Hydrothermal carbonization increased the heating value though the increase of the carbon and fixed carbon content of solid fuel due to dehydration and decarboxylation reaction. Therefore, after the hydrothermal carbonization, the H/C and O/C ratios decreased because of the chemical conversion. Energy retention efficiency suggest that the optimum temperature of hydrothermal carbonization to produce more energy-rich solid fuel is approximately $200^{\circ}C$.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.433-441
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• 2014

It has been known that sewage containing high-concentration nitrogen affects the efficiency of municipal wastewater treatment plants harmfully. Therefore, research has been actively conducted to treat sewage containing high-concentration nitrogen. The current study has analyzed organic compounds, conducted foaming tests, and operated a laboratory-level nitritation reactor with the subjects of anaerobic digester supernatant and livestock wastewater which are the typical kinds of sewage containing high-concentration nitrogen. According to the results of analyzing organic compounds, soluble inert components form the largest part of anaerobic digester supernatant while particle biodegradable components occupy the most part of livestock wastewater. About the retention time proper for the reaction of nitritation, anaerobic digester supernatant shows 2 days while livestock wastewater indicates 6 days. It seems that the difference in the proper retention time is resulted from the difference of properties in organic compounds and ammonium nitrogen concentration. In addition, livestock wastewater's reactor foam is generated comparatively more than anaerobic digester supernatant's, but it tends to be eliminated faster. It is expected that the findings of this study can be utilized as foundational data afterwards in applying the reaction of nitritation to municipal wastewater treatment plants.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.508-514
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• 2004

Industrial and municipal wastewater treatment plants produce large amounts of sludge cakes for final disposal. This problem is an inevitable drawback inherent to the activated sludge process. Both the reduction of the amount of sludge produced and improvement of its dewaterability are presently very important issue also in Korea. So many pre-treatment processes have been developed in order to improve sludge dewatering efficiency. In this study the effects of hydrogen peroxide and paper sludge mixing processes were considered as reasonable alternatives to enhance sludge dewaterability. The CST of sludge was significantly decreased, and dewaterability improved by hydrogen peroxide oxidation treatment. The optimum dosage of hydrogen peroxide was proved to be 10mg/g-TS (when TS of sludge was 2%) with the conditions of pH 4 and only 1~2 minutes of reaction time. The mixing of paper sludge with sewage sludge was turned out to be very effective in reduction of sludge cake; 30% of sludge cake reduction was accomplished. Optimum mixing ratio of paper sludge was about 30%(v/v). This process also could save 25% of polymer to be required. These two alternatives are somewhat realistic, but it was concluded that paper sludge mixing process will be the best choice.

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.235-240
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• 2005

Recently urban utility plants in urban areas of Korea, such as energy supply systems, municipal waste incineration systems, sewage treatment systems and so on, have caused some critical troubles, for instance the insensitive response to the seasonal or daily variation of loads, the low system efficiency and inefficient use of energy because of the large-scale system located a great distance. Therefor the design method of optimal integrated system model of various urban utility plants proposed in this study suitably to the present situation of Korea. Also, the effect analysis for the introduction of compound utility plants was studied for a new town model on a 60,000 persons scale. As the results we found that the complex plant was superior to individual urban utility plant in side of the initial investment expenses, the operating cost and other reasons.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.825-831
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• 2012

The retrofitting of a thickening unit process is widely considered in municipal wastewater treatment plants in Korea to enhance the anaerobic digestion efficiency. The authors examined the effect of feed concentration (2-34.1 g VS/L) and feed to microorganism (F/M) ratio (0.50-1.35 g VS/g VS) on anaerobic batch digestion of sewage sludge. Methane yield over 90 mL $CH_4/g$ $VS_{feed}$ was found at a feed concentration in the range of 12-26 g VS/L and a F/M ratio below 0.6 g VS/g VS. A high F/M ratio decreased methane yield and rate with oragnic acid accumulation. As sudden increase of sewage sludge concentration prior to anaerobic digestion would jeopardize the digester performance due to the rasied F/M ratio, gradual increase of the sludge feed concentration or an additional biomass retention in the digester is recommended.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Environment and Ecology Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.105-126
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• 2003

In Korea most of annual rainfall is concentrated in several episodic heavy rains during the season of summer monsoon and typhoon. Because of uneven rainfall distribution many dams have been constructed in order to secure water supply in dry seasons. The Han River system has the most dams among Korean rivers, and the river is a series of dams now. Reservoirs need different strategy of water quality control from river water. Autochthonous organic matter and phosphorus should be the major target to be controlled in lakes. In this Paper some problems are discussed that makes efforts of water quality improvement ineffective in lakes of Korea, even after the substantial investment to wastewater treatment facilities.1) Phosphorus is the key factor controlling eutrophication of lakes and the reduction ofphosphors should be the major target of water treatment. However, water quality management strategy in Korea is still stream-oriented, and focused on BOD removal from sewage. Phosphorus removal efficiency remains as low as 10-30%, because biological treatment is adopted for both secondary treatment and advanced treatment. The standard for TP concentration of the sewage treatment plant effluent is 6 mgP/l in most of regions, and 2 mg/l in enforced region near metropolitan water intake point. TP in the effluents of sewage treatment plants are usually 1-2 mg/1, and most of plants meet the effluent regulation without a further phosphorus removal process. The generous TP standard for effluents discourages further efforts to improve phosphorus removal efficiency of sewage treatment. Considering that TP standard for the effluent is below 0.1 mg/l in some countries, it should be amended to below 0.1 mg/l in Korea, especially in the watershed of large lakes.2) Urban runoff and combined sewer overflow are not treated, even though their total loading into lakes can be comparable to municipal sewage discharges on dry days. Chemical coagulation and rapid settling might be the solution to urban runoff in regard of intermittent operation on only rainy days.3) Aggregated precipitation in Korea that is concentrated on several episodic heavyrains per year causes a large amount of nonpoint source pollution loading into lakes. It makes the treatment of nonpoint source discharge by methods of other countries of even rain pattern, such as retention pond or artificial wetland, impractical in Korea.4) The application rate of fertilizers in Korea is ten times as high as the average ofOECD countries. The total manure discharge from animal farming is thought to be over the capacity of soil treatment in Korea. Even though large portion of manure is composted for organic fertilizer, a lot of nutrients and organic matter emanates from organic compost. The reduction of application rate and discharge rate of phosphorus from agricultural fields should be encouraged by incentives and regulations.5) There is a lot of vegetable fields with high slopes in the upstream region of the HanRiver. Soil erosion is severe due to high slopes, and fertilizer is discharged in the form of adsorbed phosphorus on clay surface. The reduction of soil erosion in the upland area should be the major preventive policy for eutrophication. Uplands of high slope must be recovered to forest, and eroded gullies should be reformed into grass-buffered natural streams which are wider and resistant to bank erosion.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.419-423
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• 1996

Municipal sewage sludge produced at the Daegu Dalseo River Municipal Sewage Treatment Station was applied to radish(cv. Altari) to develop as an organic fertilizer. The sludge contained 53.59% of organic matter, 2.89% of nitrogen, and 3.5% of phosphate, so it seems to be enough to use as an organic fertilizer. Although the Cd and Pb contents of the sludge were lower than the official standard levels for the by-product fertilizer, it seems to be needed more researches due to the accumulation of the heavy metals both in soil and plants. Application of the sludge increased soil pH, organic matter, total nitrogen, available phosphate, exchangeable Ca and Mg contents, and CEC. Also application of the sludge tended to increase Cd and Pb contents slightly in soil. Application of the sludge increased N, $P_2O_5$, Cd, and Pb contents in plant and among the heavy metals Cd accumulated more than Pb. Yield of radish increased up to 1.000kg/10a of sludge in addition to the standard chemical fertilization or 3,000kg/10a of the sludge only.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.33 no.11
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• pp.821-826
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• 2011

Synthetic musk compounds are widely used as fragrances in a variety of personal care products like soaps, sampoos, cosmetics and perfumes. The occurrence of synthetic musk compounds in municipal sewage effluent and other environmental samples could negatively impact the health of the ecosystem and humans, due to persistent and long-term chronic exposure of aquatic organisms. Fifteen synthetic musk compounds (musk ketone, musk xylene, musk ambrette, musk moskene, musk tibetene, HHCB, AHTN, ADBI, AHDI, DPMI, ATII, ethylenebrasssylate, ambretettolide, cyclopentadecanolide, OTNE) were analysed in surface waters and sewage treatment plants (STP) influents/effluents in Korea by GC/MS. Method detection limits were $0.005{\sim}0.398{\mu}g/L$. HHCB and AHTN were most frequently observed in both surface waters and STP influents/effluents.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.11-18
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• 2015

As the seriousness of water pollution resulted from nitrogen is being magnified, research has been conducted to reduce nitrogen in sewage as well as wastewater. Particularly research on innovative nitrogen removal methods that are based on the reaction of nitritation and are economically feasible and eco-friendly has been receiving attention. However, research on the applicability and efficiency of the methods based on the reaction of nitritation has not been completely done yet. Accordingly, the current study has analyzed the characteristics of sewage flowing into municipal wastewater treatment plants, primary clarifier supernatant, recycled water, and livestock wastewater and also operated a laboratory-level reactor. The result shows that recycled water and livestock wastewater contain higher-concentration nitrogen than other kinds of sewage, so they increase nitrogen loading in the water treatment line. And the result of operating a reactor shows that because of ammonium nitrogen low concentration, sewage and primary clarifier supernatant do not induce the reaction of nitritation. Also, there exist differences in the conditions of retention time inducing the reaction of nitritation by the types of sewage, and this seems to be attributed to organic compound and ammonium nitrogen concentration. Among the kinds of sewage inducing the reaction of nitritation, anaerobic digester supernatant indicates the highest efficiency.

• Journal of environmental and Sanitary engineering
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.66-75
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• 1995

This survey is executed about the water quality and improvement measure of Imjin- river. The results are summarized as follows; 1 ) Ammonia nitrogen concentration in tap water was two times higher than drinking water standard. 2) The concentration of BOD in textile wastewater was 235ppm which is higher than wastewater distribution standard and leather wastewater showed high nitrogen concentration. 3) Water quality of the Imjin- river upstream was not in problem but that of Shin- stream showed somewhat high concentration in BOD, COD, and ammonia nitrogen. Especially the detected Cynide compound on the lower of Shin- stream implied seriously polluted condition. 4) The heavy metal in soil of the river bed was not detected but iron, zinc was detected to high concentration. 5) It Is urgently suggested to build more municipal sewage and sanitary treatment plants, and run dredging and river bed rearrangement project. 6) The Construction of the wastewater treatment complexes of relevant industries shall be propelled as soon as possible.