• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
• /
• v.35 no.5
• /
• pp.343-349
• /
• 2010

Rapid on-site sensing of nitrate-nitrogen and potassium ions in hydroponic solution would increase the efficiency of nutrient use for greenhouse crops cultivated in closed hydroponic systems while reducing the potential for environmental pollution in water and soil. Ion-selective electrodes (ISEs) are a promising approach because of their small size, rapid response, and the ability to directly measure the analyte. The capabilities of the ISEs for sensing nitrate and potassium in hydroponic solution can be affected by the presence of other ions such as calcium, magnesium, sulfate, sodium, and chloride in the solution itself. This study was conducted to investigate the applicability of two ISEs consisting of TDDA-NPOE and valinomycin-DOS PVC membranes for quantitative determinations of $NO_3$-N and K in hydroponic solution. Nine hydroponic solutions were prepared by diluting highly concentrated paprika hydroponic solution to provide a concentration range of 3 to 400 mg/L for $NO_3$-N and K. Two of the calibration curves relating membrane response and nutrient concentration provided coefficients of determination ($R^2$) > 0.98 and standard errors of calibration (SEC) of < 3.79 mV. The use of the direct potentiometry method, in conjunction with an one-point EMF compensation technique, was feasible for measuring $NO_3$-N and K in paprika hydroponic solution due to almost 1:1 relationships and high coefficients of determination ($R^2$ > 0.97) between the levels of $NO_3$-N and K obtained with the ion-selective electrodes and standard instruments. However, even though there were strong linear relationships ($R^2$ > 0.94) between the $NO_3$-N and K concentrations determined by the Gran's plot-based multiple standard addition method and by standard instruments, hydroponic $NO_3$-N concentrations measured with the ISEs, on average, were about 10% higher than those obtained with the automated analyzer whereas the K ISE predicted about 59% lower K than did the ICP spectrometer, probably due to no compensation for a difference between actual and expected concentrations of standard solutions directly prepared.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
• /
• v.29 no.4
• /
• pp.452-459
• /
• 2007

Nutrient removal hybrid process to use suspended and attached growth microorganisms and apply the contact and stabilization process was process obtaining good results to HRT within 6 hours to dominate nitrifier and to promote separation and growth of autotrophs and heterotrophs to pack with EPS(Expanded Poly-Styrene) media in nitrification reactor. An average effluent quality of this process was below 5.2 mg/L, 7.3 mg/L, 4.9 mg/L as $BOD_5,\;COD_{Mn}$, SS concentration and 6.8 mg/L, 0.6 mg/L as T-N, T-P concentration. Also, An average removal efficiency of this process was 94.6%, 79.8%, 94.9% as $BOD_5,\;COD_{Mn}$, SS and 70.8%, 76.9% as T-N, T-P. 16S-rRNA analysis result of microorganisms attached to EPS media was researched Nitrosomonas and Nitrosococcus blown to ammonia-oxidizing bacteria cluster to include Gallionella and these microorganisms were researched to involve about 6% of biofilm attached EPS media. Consequently, this process was treated below 10 mg/L and 1.0mg/L as T-N, T-P concentration at short hydraulic retention time(about 6 hr) to dominate nitrifier.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
• /
• 2007.05a
• /
• pp.1-7
• /
• 2007

New Zealand is a hydrologically diverse and active country. This paper presents an overview of the major hydrological issues and problems facing New Zealand and provides examples of some the research being undertaken to solve the problems. Fundamental to any environmental decision making is the provision of good quality hydrometric data. Reduced funding for the national hydrometric network has meant a reduction in the number of monitoring sites, the decision on how to redesign the network was made using information on geographic coverage and importance of each site. New Zealand faces a major problem in understanding the impacts of rapid land use change on water quantity and quality. On top of the land use change is overlain the issue of agricultural intensification. The transfer of knowledge about impacts of change at the small watershed scale to much larger, more complex watersheds is one that is attracting considerable research attention. There is a large amount of research currently being undertaken to understand the processes of water and nutrient movement through the vadose zone into groundwater and therefore understanding the time taken for leached nutrients to reach receiving water bodies. The largest water management issue of the past 5 years has been based around fair and equitable water allocation when there is increasing demand for irrigation water. Apart from policy research into market trading for water there has been research into water storage and transfer options and improving irrigation efficiency. The final water management issue discussed concerns the impacts of hydrological extremes (floods and droughts). This is of particular concern with predictions of climate change for New Zealand suggesting increased hydrological extremes. Research work has concentrated on producing predictive models. These have been both detailed inundation models using high quality LIDAR data and also flood models for the whole country based on a newly interpolated grid network of rainfall.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
• /
• v.27 no.2
• /
• pp.31-40
• /
• 2019

In Korea, 51,013 thousand tons of livestock manure was generated in 2018. A total of 46,530 thousand tons, which is 91.2% of the total amount of livestock manure generated, was treated by composting(40,647 thousand tons) or liquid fertilization(5,884 thousand tons) method. At present, the policy of livestock manure treatment in Korea is to make livestock manure into organic fertilizer(compost, liquid fertilizer) and then to applicate it on agricultural land. And this policy is very effective in terms of livestock manure treatment and nutrient recycling. However, considering the steadily declining farmland area for decades, the use of livestock manure compost could be limited in the future. There is also concern that local nutrient overloading, nutrient management regulation, and restrictions on the number of livestock may become serious problem for livestock manure treatment. In addition, there are some opinions that nutrient derived from livestock manure may flow into tributaries of major dams. In recent years, there has been a suspicion that fine dust may be generated from livestock manure compost. In recent years, the use of livestock manure fertilizer has been rapidly increasing, there is a growing demand of the development of new technologies for livestock manure treatment. Especially, cow excretes a larger amount of manure than other livestock, so that the efficiency of development of new technology for cow manure treatment will be high. Therefore, in this study, the combustion characteristics of cow manure pellet were investigated in order to analyzed whether cow manure could be used as source of solid fuel. During the combustion test, the weight loss of the cow manure pellet began to increase when the temperature of the combustion chamber reached $300^{\circ}C$. The ratio of $H_2$, $CH_4$, CO in the pyrolysis gas produced in the pyrolysis process of cow manure pellet were 6.65~11.62%, 0.58~1.54 and 11.47~14.07%, respectively.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
• /
• v.29 no.4
• /
• pp.460-465
• /
• 2007

In this study, the removal characteristic of ammonia nitrogen and behavior of nitrogen was investigated using Leclercia adecarboxylata, which was derived from the culture contaminated by ammonia nitrogen of high concentration. The method of ammonia nitrogen removal was not biological nitrification and denitrification but elimination of nutrient salt with internal synthesis of microorganisms which use ammonia nitrogen as substrate. L. adecarboxylata(one of ammonia synthesis microorganisms) was highly activated and showed the most high removal efficiency in free salt condition but the removal efficiency decreased badly in salt concentration of more than 4%. About 80 mg/L of $NH_3-N$ was mostly removed within 20 hours and 500 mg/L of $NH_3-N$ showed less then removal efficiency of 50% because carbon source was not enough. However, ammonium nitrogen concentration was decreased again when the carbon source was inserted additionally thus, ammonium nitrogen removal efficiency by L. adecarboxylata, was related to amount of carbon source. pH decreased from 8.0 to 6.36 according to growth of L. adecarboxylata. Concentration of nitrite nitrogen and nitrate nitrogen did not increase and TKN concentration showed no variation while ammonia nitrogen was removed by L. adecarboxylata. In addition to, when content of protein in organic nitrogen was measured, protein was not detected at the beginning of microorganism synthesis but protein of 193.1 mg/L was detected after 48 hours. Hence, ammonium nitrogen was not decomposed as nitrate nitrogen and nitrite nitrogen but synthesized by L. adecarboxylata, which has excellent ability of nitrogen synthesis and can threat ammonia nitrogen of high concentration in wastewater.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
• /
• v.22 no.7
• /
• pp.829-835
• /
• 2016

An excess in the nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphate leads to a phenomenon called eutrophication. In order to avoid this, numerous methods have been used to remove excess nutrients in the water. In this study, the use of a chemical method was assessed through the formation of magnesium ammonium phosphate. The difference in the removal efficiency of seawater and sea salt solution as primary sources of $Mg^{2+}$ ions and $Ca^{2+}$ ions for the formation of magnesium ammonium phosphate (MAP) and hydroxyapatite (HAP) respectively, were observed, taking into account the changes in pH and concentration. The results showed that seawater removed about 90 % phosphate and less than 50 % ammonia in sewage water condition, whereas the sea salt solution removed almost 90 % phosphate and 70 % ammonia in solution at pH 9 and 10 mM concentration of sea salt which further increases as the optimum ${Mg/PO_4}^{3-}$, ${NH_4}^+$ ratio reaches 2. The difference in the removal efficiency of seawater and sea salt was due to the fact that the set-ups were prepared in different conditions. This study suggests that both seawater and sea salt can be used to remove nutrients from the water. The relatively higher removal of phosphate can be explained by the formation of HAP from free $Ca^{2+}$ ions initially present in seawater and sea salt solution.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
• /
• v.36 no.5
• /
• pp.290-303
• /
• 2003

Modern agriculture has been heavily dependent on chemical fertilizers to meet the food demands of ever increasing population. Progressive depletion of major plant nutrients in soil due to intensive cultivation practices has also necessitated the use of higher dose of chemical fertilizers particularly in soils where the organic matter content is very low. Indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers and pressure on agriculturists to enhance per area crop yields has led to fast depletion of fossil fuel resources with concomitant increase in the prices of chemical fertilizers and also led to environmental pollution. Hence, the current trend throughout the world is to explore the possibility of using alternate nutrient sources or increasing the efficiency of chemical fertilizers by supplementing them with organic fertilizers and bioinoculants comprising largely microbes like, bacteria, fungi, algae etc to enhance nitrogen and phosphates in the soil thus creating a sustainable agricultural environment. Among the different microbial inoculants or biofertilizers, Azospirillum could be a potential candidate due to its non specific host root colonization. It had the capability to fix $N_2$ in wide pH regimes and even in presence of combined nitrogen. Azospirillum inoculation can increase the crop yield to 10-25% and substitute 25% of recommended doses of nitrogenous fertilizers. Apart from nitrogen fixation, Azospirillum is also involved in the root improvement, the activity which was attributed to an increase in the rate of water and mineral uptake by roots. The ability of Azospirillum to produce phytohormones was reported to enhance the root respiration rate, metabolism and root proliferation. They have also been reported to produce polyhydroxybutyrate, that can be used as a biodegradable thermosplastic. A lot of studies have addressed improvements in enhancing its efficiency to fix nitrogen fixation and hormone production.

• Horticultural Science & Technology
• /
• v.28 no.3
• /
• pp.409-414
• /
• 2010

The first drainage time in a day was controlled for precise irrigation management with low consumption of nutrient solution in tomato perlite bag culture system by measuring water level of drained water in drainage catchment part. This method automatically adjusted the irrigation time under any condition of light, temperature and humidity, resulting in stable water content in substrates. However, it was difficult to keep the time consistent as they were set. It drained with the deviation of 20 min in the treatment in which the first drainage time was set at 10:00 and 50 min in the treatment set at 10:30. The first drainage time was not constant, but the drain occurred stably before noon in the treatment of which irrigation frequency was longer than 30 min. The drainage ratio was better balanced in all the treatments using drainage level sensors than the treatment using time clock for irrigation control. High water and fertilizer efficiencies were obtained. Although the growth, total yield and sugar content were not significantly different between the treatments, fruit weight was higher in the treatments using drainage level sensors than that using timer.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.39-45
• /
• 1976

The content of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium of hulled barley grown on farmer's field with various N.P.K rates were investigated at various growth stages. Correlation analyses between N.P.K contents and yield and use efficiency of N.P.K and other results were as follows. 1. According to concentration and its change at various growth stages N is similar to K and P, Ca, Mg are similar each other. 2. Yield showed significant positive correlation in most fields with nitrogen content just after thawing. However P and N content were more significantly correlated with yield just before freezing in Kangwon and Chungnam (northern and central province). At the other growth stages negative correlation trend was shown between yield and P, especially K. 3. N.P.K contents in plant increased with the increase of fertilizer rate clearly in early growth stage, and especially in nitrogen, indicating that N was relatively short than P and K in the later stage. N and K contents at various fertilizer rates also indicated a probable competition between them. 4. Fertilizer recovery (use efficiency) decreased in the order of N (55)>K (27)>P (12%) and that of N tended to increase with yield increase. 5. Most effective growth stage for nutritional diagnosis in relation to yield appears to be just after thawing or just before freezing. Nutritional criteria for N.P.K at various growth stages were proposed.

• Journal of Mushroom
• /
• v.16 no.4
• /
• pp.257-262
• /
• 2018

The aim of this study was to re-use spent mushroom substrate (SMS) with increased total nitrogen (T-N) and amino acid content and reduce the amount of cottonseed meal used as nutrient supplement in Pleurotus ostreatus cultivation. Bacteria used for improvement of the T-N content were GM20-4(Bacillus sp.) and Rhodobacter sphaeroides (RS). GM20-4 was isolated from the SMS of P. ostreatus and RS was obtained from Gwangjusi agricultural technology center. SMS in T1, T2, and T3 was reused as substrate after drying and the T-N content of dried SMS (D-SMS) was increased by 0.34% by treatment with the bacteria. T1 with 8% D-SMS and T2 with 18% D-SMS had higher rates of primordia formation compared with T3 and the control. The biological efficiency of the control and of treatment with 8%, 18%, and 26% D-SMS was 110%, 114%, 112%, and 79%, respectively. Considering the economic cost, yield, and biological efficiency, T2 with 18% D-SMS as the culture substrate for P. ostreatus was shown to be the most effective for cultivation.