• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.103-112
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• 2011

Aquatic contamination by organic pollutants has been a suspected reason for rapid decrease of amphibian populations whose embryonic and larval stages are in an aquatic environment. Amphibian embryos can be a useful model to study the ecoctoxicologial impacts of aquatic pollutants. The obtained toxicological data are useful references for the management of aquatic pollutants in public health because amphibia share many developmental events with terrestrial vertebrates including humans. Safety guidelines for the toxicological effects of aquatic contaminants of chemicals identified as hazardous should be addressed at multiple endpoints. Alkylphenols have been widely-used in agricultural, industrial, and household activities; they contaminate and can persist in aquatic environments. Exposure to alkylphenols results in endocrine disruption in aquatic animals. In this review, we summarize the developmental toxicities of alkylphenols in amphibian embryos and larva according to the exposure route, chemical concentration, duration of exposure, and affected developmental stage together with mechanisms of toxicity and typical patterns of developmental abnormality. The merits of amphibian embryos as a toxicity test model for mid- to long-term exposure to aquatic pollutants are discussed proposed.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.15 no.7
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• pp.5-11
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• 2014

Both ultraviolet (UV) and ultrasound (US) systems are used in degrading of organic contaminants and they can thus be applicable simultaneously as an UV/US hybrid system in attempts further to increase the degradation efficiency. The pseudo-first order degradation rate constants with the UV, US and UV/US hybrid irradiation were 2.60, 10.34, and $14.81{\times}10^{-3}min^{-1}$, respectively. It was observed that the synergistic effect of UV/US hybrid system for degrading the bis (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP). The highest rate of DEHP degradation was found during UV/US hybrid irradiation and the synergistic effect factor (SEF) was calculated to be 1.15 based on the pseudo-first order degradation rate constants. Results indicate that synergistic effect of UV/US hybrid system is closely correlated to the enhancement of sonochemical reactivity with the UV-US interaction of increasing the formation rate of OHby providing additional $H_2O_2$ production through the pyrolysis of water molecules during UV/US hybrid irradiation.

• Water for future
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.49-60
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• 1991

As a second part of the study entitled "Field Measurement and Analysis of Fluvial Sediment in the Cheongmi-Strea", this study concerns mineralogical and contaminative characteristics of sediment particles collected at Wonbu-Gyo and Hanpyeong-Gyo in the Cheongmi-Stream. The mineralogical analysis of the bed sediment collected reveals that, in general , quarz is the most abundant mineral found in sands with feldspars and rock fragments in the next, which confirms what is known in the literature. The shape factor of sand particles is about 0.7, which also agrees to what is known in the foreign literature. The analysis also reveals that the clay particles collected are composed mainly of illite, kaolinate, and chlorite. The analysis of contamination reveals that there is no substantial difference between the contents of organic material and heavy metals in the surface water and those in the pore water beneath the river bed. It is because the sampling for this analysis was conducted right after the September flood during which the fresh top soil from the upstream watershed replaced the old bed sediment and pore water that would probably be more contaminated. The contents of geavy metals in the bed sediment of sand particles do not exceed those in the soils adjacent to the river. For fine sediment such as clays, however, the contents of heavy metals, especially of mercury and zinc, far exceed those in the soils adjacent to the river. These fine sediments are transported downstream in the form of wash load and deposited in part on flood plains, which could be a new source of contaminants.taminants.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.44-49
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• 2013

Hydrogen penetration into a metal leads to damages and mechanical degradations and its content measurement is of importance. For a precise measurement, a sample preparation procedure must be optimized through a series of studies on sample washing and drying. In this study, two-step washing with organic solvents and thermal soaking in inert gas were tried with a rod-shaped, API X65 steel sample. The samples were machined from a steel plate and then washed in acetone and etyl-alcohol for 5 minute each and dried with compressed air. After then, the samples were thermally soaked in a home-made nitrogen gas chamber during 10 minute at different heat gun temperatures from 100 to $400^{\circ}C$ and corresponding temperature range in the soaking chamber was from 77 to $266^{\circ}C$ according to the temperature calibration. Hydrogen residue in the samples was measured with a hot extraction system after each soaking step; hydrogen residue of $0.70{\pm}0.12$ wppm after the thermal soaking at $77^{\circ}C$ decayed with increase of the soaking temperature. By adopting the heat transfer model, decay behavior of the hydrogen residue was fitted into an exponential decay function of the soaking temperature. Saturated value or lower bound of the hydrogen residue was 0.36 wppm and chamber temperature required to lower the hydrogen residue about 95% of the lower bound was $360^{\circ}C$. Furthermore, a thermal desorption spectroscopy was done for the fully soaked samples at $360^{\circ}C$. Weak hydrogen peak was observed for whole temperature range and it means that hydrogen-related contaminants of the sample surface are steadily removed by heating. In addition, a broad peak found around $400^{\circ}C$ means that parts of the hydrogen residue are irreversibly trapped in the steel microstructure.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.17-25
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• 2016

In this study, the air quality of underground and overground railway stations was evaluated focusing on the degree of influence of the outside air quality. The measured components were particulate matter ($PM_{10}$), carbon dioxide ($CO_2$), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide ($NO_2$), formaldehyde (HCHO), ozone ($O_3$), total airborne bacteria (TAB), total volatile organic carbon (TVOC), and Radon (Rn), which are included in the maintenance standards and recommended standards of the Indoor Air Quality Management Act. Also, the indoor/outdoor concentration ratios of $PM_{10}$, $NO_2$, and $O_3$ were calculated to estimate the influence of the outdoor air quality. The concentrations of $PM_{10}$ HCHO, TVOC, $NO_2$, and Rn in the underground stations were found to be higher than those in the overground stations. These results indicate that the (present) generation of contaminants are caused by the indoor source of the underground station. The ozone concentration of the overground stations was higher than that of the underground stations, which indicates that the outdoor ozone concentration influenced that of the overground stations directly. Thus, methods of improving the IAQ should take into consideration the types of contamination.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.1204-1210
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• 2014

New control methods are proposed for indoor air quality by removing fine airborne dust-particles. As suspended fine dust-particles contain inorganic dust as well as fine organic bacteria, studies for simultaneous control of these contaminants are required. In this study, photocatalytic disinfection of indoor suspended microorganisms such as E. coli and Bacillus subtilis is performed by three types of photocatalysts with UVA irradiation. The UVA irradiation strength was controlled to the minimum $3{\mu}W/cm^2$, and ZnO, $TiO_2$, and ZnO/Laponite ball were used as the catalysts. The results indicate that E. coli was removed over 80 % after about 2 hours of reaction with UVA and all three types of photocatalysts, whereas only with UVA, around 50 % E. coli removal was obtained. Among the catalysts, ZnO/Laponite composite ball was found to have similar sterilizing capacity to $TiO_2$. However, in case of B. subtilis, which has thick cell wall in its spore state, disinfection was not effective under the low UVA irradiation condition, even with the catalysts. Further studies need to figure out the optimal UVA irradiation ranges as well as photocatalysts doses to control airborne dust, to provide healthy clean air environment.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.313-321
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• 1996

Our laboratoy has been participated in Proficiency Analytical Testing (PAT) program which is operated by the Americal Industrial Hygiene Association in cooperation with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). The program is designed to assist a laboratory improve its analytical performance by providing samples on a quarterly basis, evaluating the results, and providing reports on how well the laboratory performed. Evaluation of the results reported here covers five rounds of the PAT program (round 121~round 125). The way a laboratory is evaluated by PAT program is as follows: 1) There is no overall proficiency rating given to a laboratory. 2) A proficiency rating is given for each type of analyze (i.e., metals, silica, asbestos, solvents) that a laboratory analyzed. 3) Proficiency is rated acceptable ("A") if Z score lies between -3 and +3, and unacceptable if Z score is either higher than +3 ("H") or lower than -3 ("Lo"). Z score = (reported data - reference value) / standard deviation 4) For a laboratory to be rated proficient it must either have had no outliers over the most recent two rounds or of the samples actually analyzed over the past year (past four rounds), 75 % or more of the analyze sample results must be acceptable. According to the above rating criteria of PAT program, performance of metals including cadmium, lead, chromium and zinc, and asbestos sample analyses were rated acceptable ("A"). For silica analyses, all samples except one out of four samples in round 122 was rated high("H") were acceptable showing 95 % of ing 95 % of acceptance rate (19/20) throughout the rounds. Analyses of organic solvents were done on 52 samples in 9 types including methanol(MOH), 1,1,1-trichloroethane(MCM), tetrachloroethylene(PCE), trichloroethylene(TCE), benzene(BNZ), o-xylene(OXY), toluene(TOL), chloroform(CFM), 1,2-dichloroethane(DCE). All samples analyzed were rated acceptable except 2 samples that were rated high; one out of each four MCM and TCE samples in round 121, and one that was low out of four o-xylene analyses in round 122 indicating 94 % of acceptance rate(49/52) throughout the rounds. According to the laboratory rating criteria, our laboratory is rated proficient so far for all types of contaminants.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.41-46
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• 2014

The property improvement of polycarbonate coated with a multilayer film composed of an inorganic $SiO_2$ film and a photocatalytic $TiO_2$ film was studied. The $SiO_2$ film as a binder had an excellent light transmission characteristic. After the treatment with atmospheric pressure plasma, the surface of $SiO_2$ film showed the hydrophilicity, which increased the film coating uniformity with a $TiO_2$-containing aqueous solution. When $TiO_2$ film was over 200 nm thick, the absorption effect of UV rays in the range of 180~400 nm suppressed the yellowing phenomena of polycarbonate substrate. The inorganic film improved the heat resistance of polycarbonate substrates. $TiO_2$ film in the outmost under the exposure of UV rays promotes the catalytic oxidation characteristics and yields the capability to the decomposition of organic contaminants, and also increases the self-cleaning properties due to the increase of hydrophilicity. Structural stability of the polycarbonate substrate coated with inorganic $TiO_2$ and $SiO_2$ film was shown. The role of $SiO_2$ film between $TiO_2$ and polycarbonate substrate suppressed the peeling of $TiO_2$ film by inhibiting the photocatalytic oxidation effect of $TiO_2$ film on the polycarbonate substrate.

• Clean Technology
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.293-300
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• 2018

Sulfamethoxazole (SMX) is sulfaamide-based synthetic antibiotics, which are widely prescribed pharmaceutical compound to treat bacterial infections in both human and animals. Most of them are not completely decomposed as refractory substances. The environmental impact of pharmaceuticals as emerging contaminants has generated severe concerns. In this study, catalytic wet peroxide oxidation (CWPO) of SMX was carried out with $Cu/Al_2O_3$ catalyst and investigated the optimum reaction conditions of temperature, dosage of catalyst and concentration of $H_2O_2$ to completely decompose the SMX. It was observed that SMX was completely decomposed within 20 min using 0.79 mM $H_2O_2$ and 6 g $Cu/Al_2O_3$ catalyst at 1 atm and $40^{\circ}C$, but SMX was not fully mineralized and converted to intermediates as hydroylated-SMX, sulfanilic acid, 4-aminobenzenesulfinic acid and nitrobenzene. After that these are completely mineralized through organic acid. We proposed the decomposition reaction path ways of SMX by analyzing the behavior of these intermediates. To investigate the durability of heterogeneous catalyst, decomposition of SMX was observed by continuously recycling catalysts. When the heterogeneous catalyst of 10 wt% $Cu/Al_2O_3$ was continuously reused 5 times, decomposition of SMX was a little lowered, but the activity of catalyst was overall very stable.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.24 no.7
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• pp.916-922
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• 2018

Recently, power plant effluent condensers received a Renewable Energy Certificate as components of hydrothermal energy (weighted 1.5 times) as one target item of the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) policy. Accordingly, more attention is being paid to the value of thermal wastewater as a heat source. However, for utilization of thermal wastewater from power plants in high-turbidity areas like the West Sea of Korea, a turbidity reducing system is required to reduce system contamination. In this study, an experimental test was performed over a month on thermal wastewater from power plants located in the West Sea of Korea. It was found that water turbidity was reduced by more than 80 % and that the concentration of organic materials and nutrient salts was partially reduced due to the reduction of floating/drifting materials. To conduct a comparative analysis of the level of contamination of the heat exchanger when thermal wastewater flows in through a turbidity reducing system versus when the condenser effluent flows in directly without passing through the turbidity system, we disassembled and analyzed heat exchangers operated for 30 days. As a result, it was found that the heat exchanger without a turbidity reducing system had a higher level of contamination. Main contaminants (scale) that flowed in to the heat exchanger included minerals such as $SiO_2$, $Na(Si_3Al)O_8$, $CaCO_3$ and NaCl. It was estimated that marine sediment soil flowed in to the heat exchanger because of the high level of turbidity in the water-intake areas.