• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.161-165
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• 2009

To evaluate the efficiency of the decontamination plant for the removal of uranium compounds deposited on the internal surface of $UF_6$ cylinder for its reuse, two demonstration tests of the plant with different ratio of ${Na_2}{CO_3}$ and ${H_2}{O_2}$ were carried out, and each test had 5 steps. The main chemical form removed by the tests was to be identified as ${Na_4}{UO_2}(CO_3)_3$. More than 50% of uranium was removed by water of the first step, and at the following steps the removal amounts were exponentially decreased. On the other hand, the result shows that the injected amount of ${Na_2}{CO_3}$, compared with that of the removed uranium, was stoichiometrically excessed. This suggests that the injected amounts of ${Na_2}{CO_3}$, the generation rate of decontaminated waste, and the decontamination steps could be reduced by a process optimization of the plant.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.26-33
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• 2017

The objective of this study was to evaluate the characteristic of adsorption by using a meso-porous adsorbent (MPA), and investigate the removal efficiency of geosmin which taste and odor causing compounds in drinking water supplies through batch test. The results for the adsorption isotherm was analyzed by using the Langmuir equation and Freundlich equation, generally being applied. And the study showed that the both Langmuir and Freundlich equation explains the results better. Both of pseudo-first-order model and pseudo-second-order model were respectively applied for evaluation of kinetic sorption property of geosmin onto MPA. The adsorption experiment results using MPA showed that maximum adsorption capacity of MPA was lower 7 times than that of GAC, and adsorption rate of MPA was faster 11 times than that of GAC, on the basis of pseudo-first-order model. Therefore, it was determined that MPA was effectively able to remove geosmin in drinking water supplies in short EBCT condition, but regeneration cycle in MAP process was shorter than that in conventional process.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.169-179
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• 2011

There are two types of nuclear reactors in Korea and they are PWR type and CANDU type. The safe management of the spent fuels from these reactors is very important factor to maintain the sustainable energy supply with nuclear power plant. In Korea, a reference disposal system for the spent fuels has been developed through a study on the direct disposal of the PWR and CANDU spent fuel. Recently, the research on the demonstration and the efficiency analyses of the disposal system has been performed to make the disposal system safer and more economic. PWR spent fuels which include a lot of reusable material can be considered being recycled and a study on the disposal of HLW from this recycling process is being performed. CANDU spent fuels are considered being disposed of directly in deep geological formation, since they have little reusable material. In this study, based on the Korean Reference spent fuel disposal System (KRS) which was to dispose of both PWR type and CANDU type, the more effective CANDU spent fuel disposal systems were developed. To do this, the disposal canister for CANDU spent fuels was modified to hold the storage basket for 60 bundles which is used in nuclear power plant. With these modified disposal canister concepts, the disposal concepts to meet the thermal requirement that the temperature of the buffer materials should not be over $100^{\circ}C$ were developed. These disposal concepts were reviewed and analyzed in terms of disposal effective factors which were thermal effectiveness, U-density, disposal area, excavation volume, material volume etc. and the most effective concept was proposed. The results of this study will be used in the development of various wastes disposal system together with the HLW wastes from the PWR spent fuel recycling process.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.105-112
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• 2020

Transition metal oxide, which undergoes a conversion reaction in the negative electrode material for a lithium-ion batteries, has a high specific capacity, but still has several critical problems. In this study, manganese pyrophosphate (Mn₂P₂O₇), nickel pyrophosphate (Ni₂P₂O₇), and carbon composite materials with pyrophosphates as novel negative electrode materials instead of transition metal oxide, are synthesized through simple solid-state reaction. The initial reversible capacity of Mn₂P₂O₇ and Ni₂P₂O₇ are 333 and 340 mAh g^-1, and when the composite materials are composed with carbon, the reversible capacity increases to 433 and 387 mAh g^-1, respectively. The initial Coulombic efficiency is also improved by about 10%. The Mn₂P₂O₇ and carbon composite material has the highest initial capacity and efficiency, and has the best cycle performance. Mn₂P₂O₇ containing polyanion, has a lower specific capacity due to the large mass of polyanion compared to MnO (manganese oxide). However, since Mn₂P₂O₇ shows a voltage curve with a slope, the charging (lithiation) voltage increases from 0.51 to 0.57 V (vs. Li/Li⁺), and the discharge (delithiation) voltage decreases from 1.15 to 1.01 V (vs. Li/Li⁺). Therefore, the voltage efficiency of the cell is improved because the voltage difference between charging and discharging is greatly reduced from 0.64 to 0.44 V, and the operating voltage of the full cell increases because the negative electrode potential is lowered during the discharging process.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.39-52
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• 2007

Quantitative analysis on release behavior of the $^{85}Kr\;and\;^{14}C$ fission gases from the spent fuel material during the voloxidation and OREOX process has been performed. This thermal treatment step in a remote fabrication process to fabricate the dry-processed fuel from spent fuel has been used to obtain a fine powder The fractional release percent of fission gases from spent fuel materials with burn-up ranges from 27,000 MWd/tU to 65,000 MWd/tU have been evaluated by comparing the measured data with these initial inventories calculated by ORIGEN code. The release characteristics of $^{85}Kr\;and\;^{14}C$ fission gases during the voloxidation process at $500^{\circ}C$ seem to be closely linked to the degree of conversion efficiency of $UO_2\;to\;U_3O_8$ powder, and it is thus interpreted that the release from grain-boundary would be dominated during this step. The high release fraction of the fission gas from an oxidized powder during the OREOX process would be due to increase both in the gas diffusion at a temperature of $500^{\circ}C$ in a reduction step and in U atom mobility by the reduction. Therefore, it is believed that the fission gases release inventories in the OREOX step come from the inter-grain and inter-grain on $UO_2$ matrix. It is shown that the release fraction of $^{85}Kr\;and\;^{14}C$ fission gases during the voloxidation step would be increased as fuel burn-up increases, ranging from 6 to 12%, and a residual fission gas would completely be removed during the OREOX step. It seems that more effective treatment conditions for a removal of volatile fission gas are of powder formation by the oxidation in advance than the reduction of spent fuel at the higher temperature.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.98-106
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• 2015

VE aims at reduction in a budget, improvement of function, structural safety and quality security for public construction projects. However, there is possibility for the structural safety and quality security review to be insufficient because related regulations are mostly composed of analysis on economic efficiency of design. In addition, due to the misconception about VE as a cost saving methodology, an alternative is being presented which still focuses mainly on cost saving, but with no objective evaluation of function related to cost. In order to improve this, the government adopted the reduction of life cycle cost and proposal of value improvement, and let people specify the cost and function of the original plan versus the alternative plan, and the value changes between them. However, it is written mainly into practical convenience rather than theoretical basis since a specific way is not suggested. The current method sets a different starting point by applying the attributional difference of function and cost. Furthermore, an evaluation standard for correlating is an important element in rational decision making for assessing and choosing an alternative. This paper analyzes the process and method of function & cost scoring when performing VE and suggests a mathematical normalization model in order to support rational decision making when selecting an optimum plan.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.231-238
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• 2008

This study proposed the method of phosphate recovery from municipal wastewater by using ferrous iron waste, generated from the mechanical process in the steel industry. In the analysis of XRD, ferrous iron waste was composed of $Fe_3O_4$ (magnetite), practically with $Fe^{2+}$ and $Fe^{3+}$. It had inverse spinel structure. In order to identify the adsorption characteristic of phosphate on ferrous iron waste, isotherm adsorption test was designed. Experimental results were well analyzed by Freundlich and Langmuir isotherm theories. Empirical constants of all isotherms applied increased with alkalinity in the samples, ranging from 1.2 to 235 $CaCO_3/L$. In the regeneration test, empirical constants of Langmuir isotherm, i.e., $q_{max}$ (maximum adsorption capacity) and b (energy of adsorption) decreased as the frequency of regeneration was increased. Experiment was further performed to evaluate the performance of the treatment scheme of chemical precipitation by ferrous iron waste followed by biological aerated filter (BAF). The overall removal efficiency in the system increased up to 80% and 90% for total phosphate (TP) and soluble phosphate (SP), respectively, and the corresponding effluent concentrations were detected below 2 mg/L and 1 mg/L for TP and SP, respectively. However, short-circuit problem was still unsolved operational consideration in this system. The practical concept applied in this study will give potential benefits in achieving environmentally sound wastewater treatment as well as environmentally compatible waste disposal in terms of closed substance cycle waste management.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.141-148
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• 2011

It is clarified in the radioactive waste transfer regulation that the concentration of radioactive waste for the major radio nuclide has to be examined when radioactive waste is guided to the radioactive waste stores. In case of the low level radioactive waste sample, the analytical results of radioactive waste concentration frequently show a value lower than minimum detectable activity (MDA). Since the MDA value basically depends on the amount of a sample, background value, measurement time, counting efficiency, and etc, it would be necessary to increase a sample amount with a intention of minimizing MDA. In order to measure a concentration of $^{129}I$ in low and medium level radioactive waste, $^{129}I$ was collected by using a distillation technique after leaching the simulated radioactive waste sample with a non-volatile acid. The recovery of $^{129}I$ measured was compared with that measured with column elution technique which is a conventional method using an anion-exchange resin. The recovery of inactive iodide by using the distillation method and column elution were found as $86.5{\pm}0.9%$ and $87.3{\pm}2.7%$, respectively. The recovery and MDA value calculated for distillation technique when 100 g of extracted solution of $^{129}I$ was taken, were found to be $84.6{\pm}1.6%$ and $1.2{\times}10^{-4}Bq/g$, respectively. Consequently, the proposed technique with simplified process lowered the MDA value more than 10 times compared to the column elution technique that has a disadvantage of limited sampling amount.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.11-19
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• 2015

The production of nuclear fuel cladding tube is expected to increase with the nuclear power plant expansion. Zirconium(Zr) scrap that is generated during manufacturing is also expected to increase. Zr electrorefining experiment was carried out in the fluoride salt of LiF-KF-ZrF₄ using multiple electrode for scale up and improving throughput Zr electrorefiner develop-ment. The Zr reduction peak observed at-0.8 V(vs.Ni). Polarization behavior showed that the amount of applied current increases because of decreasing cell resistance as the number of cathode increases. Experimental results showed the highest recovery rate about 98% at lowest current density of 25.64 mA/cm² using 6 electrodes. XRD and TG analysis result show that pure Zr was recovered 99.92% and ICP analysis shows that lower impurity content than conventional impurity content of the Anode(97.8%). Electrorefining consumes energy about 7.15 kWh/kg less than 39.7% compared to the Kroll process using 6 electrode width of 20 mm and height of 65 mm. Because of increasing cell efficiency and recovery rate, using multiple cathode is determined as an efficient technique for scale up electrorefining Zr scrap.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.347-357
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• 2018

The applicability of room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs), 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide ([$C_nmim$] [$Tf_2N$]), was investigated for the extraction of Am(III) and Eu(III) from nitric acid using n-octyl(phenyl)-N,N-diisobutyl carbamoylmethyl phosphine oxide (CMPO) and tri-n-butylphosphate (TBP) as extractants. The distribution ratios of Am(III) and Eu(III) in CMPO-TBP/[$C_nmim$][$Tf_2N$] were measured as a function of various parameters such as the concentrations of nitric acid, CMPO, and TBP. The results were compared with those obtained in CMPO-TBP/n-dodecane (n-DD). With comparable concentrations of the extractants, the distribution ratios obtained with RTILs were much higher than those obtained with n-DD. It was observed that the extraction efficiency was less for Eu(III) than for Am(III). The extraction of Am(III) and Eu(III) decreased with increases in the feed acidity for all three RTILs. The results suggest that the extraction of Am(III) and Eu(III) by CMPO in RTILs from nitric acid proceeds through the cation-exchange mechanism. The distribution ratios of Am(III) and Eu(III) increased with increases in the concentration of CMPO for all three RTILs. A linear regression analysis of the extraction data resulted in a straight line with a slope of about 3, suggesting the involvement of 3 molecules of CMPO during the extraction process.