• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.185-195
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• 2006

Phytoremediation is an economical and environmentally friendly bioremediation technique using plants which can increase the microbial population in soil. Unlike other pollutants such as heavy metals, poly-chlorinated biphenyl, trichloroethylene, perchloroethylene and so on, petroleum hydrocarbons are relatively easily degradable by soil microbes. For successful phytoremediation of soil contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons, it is important to select plants with high removal efficiency through microbial degradation. In this study, we clarified the roles of plants and rhizobacteria and identified their species effective on phytore-mediation by reviewing the papers previously reported. Plants and rhizobacteria can degrade and remove the petroleum hydrocarbons directly and indirectly by stimulating each other's degradation activity. The preferred plant species are alfalfa, ryegrass, tall fescue, poplar, corn, etc. The microorganisms with a potential to degrade hydrocarbons mostly belong to Pseudomonas spp., Bacillus spp., and Alcaligenes spp. It has been reported that the elimination efficiency of hydrocarbons by soil microorganisms can be improved when plants were simultaneously applied. For more efficient restoration, it's necessary to understand the plant-rhizobacteria interaction and to select the suitable plant and microorganism species.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.330-335
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• 1998

The objectives of this study are summarized with two. The one is to remove of $COD_{Cr}$, color and turbidity with coagulation and ozonation in nonbiodegradable landfill leachate, the other is to compare of water qualities with pre-ozonation and post-ozonation. The results are summarized as follows ; 1) 90 minutes ozonation with $75mgO_3/min$($4.5gO_3/hr$) was conducted at pH 4,7, 10 to remove $COD_{Cr}$. Removal efficiencies were investigated with 48.2%, 52.6%, and 62.3% respectively. As increasing pH, $COD_{Cr}$ removal efficiencies were increased, it was considered that hydroxyl radical($OH{\cdot}$) which strongly oxdize and nonselectively react with organic compounds, was rapidly produced by ozone self-decomposition at high pH. 2) Alum, ferric chloride and ferrous sulfate were used for coagulation as inorganic coagulant. Ferric chloride was investigated with optimal coagulant, and it removed $COD_{Cr}$ about 12.0% at pH5 and dosage of $2,000m{\ell}/{\ell}$. Cation(C-101P), anion(A-601P) and nonion(SC-050) were tested to remove organic pollutants in landfill leachate. Cation(C-101P) was investigated with the most effective organic coagulant, and removal efficiency of $COD_{Cr}$ was 19.8% at pH5 and dosage of $100m{\ell}/{\ell}$. 3) Color and turbidity were removed up to 88.6%, 97.0% at pH10, when contacted 90 minutes with ozone, respectively. These removal efficiencies were much higher than those of $COD_{Cr}$ and $COD_{Mn}$. It was considered that ozone could oxdize the triggering materials of color and turbidity selectively and preferentially. 4) $COD_{Cr}$, color and turbidity were more effectively removed with pre-ozonation than post-ozonation about 8%, 3.5% and 1% respectively. These results were well corresponed with other's studies that pre-ozonation will increase the effect of coagulation.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.56-64
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• 2001

Composting of livestock feces is economic and safe process to decrease the possibility of direct leakage of organic pollutants to ecosystem from commercial and environmental point of view. This study was conducted with three different experiments related to composting of livestock feces. The purpose of experiment 1 was to investigate changes of characteristic of compost pile during composting period by low temperature in cold season. To compare composting effect of experimental compost pile and control pile exposed in cold air, experimental compost piles were warmed up by hot air until their temperatures were reached at $35^{\circ}C$. Sawdust, Ricehull and Ricestraw were mixed with livestock feces as bulking agent. The highest temperatures of compost pile during composting period were in sawdust, rice hull, rice straw, and control were $75^{\circ}C$, $76^{\circ}C$, $68^{\circ}C$, $45^{\circ}C$ respectively. Moisture content, pH, C/N and volume of compost were decreased during composting period. Experiment 2 was carried out to study utilization effect of compost by plant. A corn was cultivated for 3 years on fertilized land with compost and chemical fertilizer. The amount of harvest and nutrition value of corn were analyzed. In first year of trial, the amount of harvest of corn on land treated with compost was lower by 20% than that of land treated with chemical fertilizer. In second year, there was no difference in yield of com between compost and chemical fertilizer. In third year, the yield of com on land fertilized with compost was much more than that of land fertilized with chemical fertilizer. The purpose of experiment 3 was to estimate the decrease of malodorous gas originating from livestock feces by bio-filter. Four types of bio-filters filled with saw dust, night soil, fermented compost and leaf mold were manufactured and tested. Each bio-filter achieved 87-95% $NH_3$ removal efficiency. This performance was maintained for 10 days. The highest $NH_3$ removal efficiency was achieved by leaf mold on the first day of operation period. It reduced the concentration of $NH_3$ by about 95%. Night soil and fermented compost showed nearly equal performance of 93 to 94% for 10 days from the beginning of operation. The concentration of hydrogen sulfide and methyl mercaptan originating for compost were equal to or less than $3mg/{\ell}$ and $2mg/{\ell}$, respectively. After passing throughout the bio-filter, hydrogen sulfide and methyl mercaptan were not detected.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.171-178
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• 2013

In this study, the sludge that occurs in the initial operation of coagulation system developed for the treatment of CSOs were returned to the flocculation reactor. The purposes of this study were to analyze the Characteristics of flocs that are generated through the recycling sludge and settling characteristics of sludge, and to evaluate the possibility that high concentrations of particulate matter in the initial inflow of CSOs could be used as an weighted coagulant additive. As a result, the concentration of treated CSOs pollutants at the beginning of the CSOs influent with a large amount of particulate matter over 20 ${\mu}m$ was low, after gradually increasing the concentrations of them. The flocs generated from the sludge return were similar in size compared to flocs generated through injection of micro sands, and settling velocity in case of return sludge injection was decreased from 55.1 cm/min to 21.5 cm/min. SVI value of the sludge accumulated at the bottom of the sedimentation tank was 72, and settled sludge volume decreased rapidly due to the consolidation of sludge to the time it takes to 10 minutes. these mean that sludge used for recycling has good settling characteristic. A condition of returned sludge which is 0.1% return of 0.3% extraction was formed in the balance of settlement and extraction. In this case, This condition was to be adequate to maintain the proper concentration such as 100~200 mg/L of TS and 50~100 mg/L of VS in the flocculation reactor. The usage of the return sludge containing particulate matters of CSOs as an weighted coagulant additive was able to secure a stable treated water quality despite the change of influent water quality dynamically. Furthermore, it can be expected to reduce the alum dosage along with the sludge production.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.24-31
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• 2016

The increase of impervious area in cities caused the unbalanced water cycle system and the accumulated various contaminants, which make troubles as introducing into watershed. In Korea, most of rainfall in a year precipitate in a summer season. This indicate that non-point source pollution control should be more important in summer and careful rainfall reuse strategy is necessary. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to monitor the characteristics of rainfall contaminants harvested in roofs and to develop the rainfall treatment system which are designed to fit well in a typical domestic household including rain garden. The rain garden consists of peatmoss, gravel and san to specially treat the initial rainfall contaminants. For this purpose, lab scale experiments with synthetic rainfall had been conducted to optimize the removal efficiency of TN, TP and CODcr. After lab scale experiments, field scale rainfall treatment system installed as a pilot scale in a field. This system has been monitored during June to July in 2015 in four time rainfall events as investigating the function of time, rainfall, and pollutant concentrations. As results, high loading of pollutants were introduced to the rainfall treatment system and its removal efficiency is increased as increase of pollutant concentrations. Since it is common that the mega-size of rainfall treatment system is not attractive in urban area, small scale rainfall treatment system is promising to treat the non-point source contaminants from cities. In addition, this small scale rainfall treatment system could have a potential to water resue system in islands, which usually suffer the shortage of water.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.501-510
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• 2017

In this study, it is estimated that ceramic membrane process which can operate stably in harsh conditions replacing existing organic membrane connected with coagulation, sedimentation etc.. Jar-test was conducted by using artificial raw water containing kaolin and humic acid. It was observed that coagulant (A-PAC, 10.6%) 4mg/l is the optimal dose. As a results of evaluation of membrane single filtration process (A), coagulation-membrane filtration process (B) and coagulation-sedimentation-membrane filtration process (C), TMP variation is stable regardless of in Flux $2m^3/m^2{\cdot}day$. But in Flux $5m^3/m^2{\cdot}day$, it show change of 1-89.3 kpa by process. TMP of process (B) and (C) is increased 11.8, 0.6 kpa each. But, the (A) showed the greatest change of TMP. When evaluate (A) and (C) in Flux $10m^3/m^2{\cdot}day$, TMP of (A) stopped operation being exceeded 120 kpa in 20 minutes. On the other hand, TMP of (C) is increased only 3 kpa in 120 minutes. Through this, membrane filtration process can be operated stably by using the linkage between the pretreatment process and the ceramic membrane filtration process. Turbidity of treated water remained under 0.1 NTU regardless of flux condition and DOC and $UV_{254}$ showed a removal rate of 65-85%, 95% more each at process connected with pretreatment. Physical cleaning was carried out using water and air of 500kpa to show the recovery of pollutants formed on membrane surface by filtration. In (A) process, TMP has increased rapidly and decreased the recovery by physical cleaning as the flux rises. This means that contamination on membrane surface is irreversible fouling difficult to recover by using physical cleaning. Process (B) and (C) are observed high recovery rate of 60% more in high flux and especially recovery rate of process (B) is the highest at 95.8%. This can be judged that the coagulation flocs in the raw water formed cake layer with irreversible fouling and are favorable to physical cleaning. As a result of estimation, observe that ceramic membrane filtration connected with pretreatment improves efficiency of filtration and recovery rate of physical cleaning. And ceramic membrane which is possible to operate in the higher flux than organic membrane can be reduce the area of water purification facilities and secure a stable quantity of water by connecting the ceramic membrane with pretreatment process.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.401-418
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• 2000

1. Production of the artificial zeolite from coal ash Coal fly ash is mainly composed of several oxides including $SiO_2$ and $Al_2O_3$ derived from inorganic compounds remained after burning. As minor components, $Fe_2O_3$ and oxides of Mg, Ca, P, Ti (trace) are also contained in the ash. These components are presented as glass form resulting from fusion in the process of the combustion of coal. In other word, coal ash may refer to a kind of aluminosilicate glass that is known to easily change to zeolite-like materials by hydrothermal reaction. Lots of hot seawater is disposing near thermal power plants after cooling turbine generator periodically. Using seawater in the hydrothermal reaction caused to produce low price artificial zeolite by reduction of sodium hydroxide consumption, heating energy and water cost. As coal ash were reacted hydrothermally, peaks of quartz and mullite in the ash were weakened and disappeared, and new Na-Pl peaks were appeared strengthily. Si-O-Si bonding of the bituminous coal ash was changed to Si-O-Al (and $Fe^{3+}$) bonding by the reaction. Therefore the produced Na-Pl type zeolite had high CEC of 276.7 $cmol^+{\cdot}kg^{-1}$ and well developed molecular sieve structure with low concentration of heavy metals. 2. Utilization of the artificial zeolite in agro-environment The artificial zeolite(1g) could remove 123.5 mg of zinc, 164.7 mg copper, 184.4 mg cadmium and 350.6 mg lead in the synthetic wastewater. The removability is higher 2.8 times in zinc, 3.3 times in copper, 4.7 times in cadmium and 4.8 times in lead than natural zeolite and charcoal powder. When the heavy metals were treated at the ratio of 150 $kg{\cdot}ha^{-1}$ to the rice plant, various growth inhibition were observed; brownish discoloration and death of leaf sheath, growth inhibition in culm length, number of panicles and grains, grain ripening and rice yield. But these growth inhibition was greatly alleviated by the application of artificial zeolite, therefore, rice yield increased $1.1{\sim}3.2$ times according to the metal kind. In addition, the concentration of heavy metals in the brown rice also lowered by $27{\sim}75%$. Artificial Granular Zeolites (AGZ) was developed for the purification of wastewater. Canon exchange capacity was 126.8 $cmol^+{\cdot}kg^{-1}$. AGZ had Na-Pl peaks mainly with some minor $C_3S$ peaks in X-ray diffractogram. In addition, AGZs had various pore structure that may be adhere the suspended solid and offer microbiological niche to decompose organic pollutants. AGZ could remove ammonium, orthophosphate and heavy metals simultaneously. Mixing ratio of artificial zeolite in AGZs was related positively with removal efficiency of $NH_4\;^+$ and negatively with that of $PO_4\;^{3-}$. Root growth of rice seedling was inhibited severely in the mine wastewater because of strong acidity and high concentration of heavy metals. As AGZ(1 kg) stayed in the wastewater(100L) for 4days, water quality turned into safely for agricultural usage and rice seedlings grew normally.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.270-276
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• 2008

$N_2$ doped $TiO_2$ nano-sized powder was prepared using a DC arc plasma jet and investigated with XRD, BET, SEM, TEM, and photo-catalytic decomposition. Recently the research interest about the nano-sized $TiO_2$ powder has been increased to improve its photo-catalytic activity for the removal of environmental pollutants. Nitrogen gas, reacting gas, and titanium tetrachloride ($TiCl_4$) were used as the raw materials and injected into the plasma reactor to synthesize the $N_2$ doped $TiO_2$ power. The particle size and XRD peaks of the synthesized powder were analyzed as a function of the flow rate of the nitrogen gas. Also, the characteristics of the photo-catalytic decomposition using the prepared powder were studied. For comparing the photo-catalytic decomposition performance of $TiO_2$ powder with that of $TiO_2$ coating, $TiO_2$ thin films were prepared by the spin coating and the pulsed laser deposition. For the results of the acetaldehyde decomposition, the photo-catalytic activity of $TiO_{2-x}N_x$ powder was higher than that of the pure $TiO_2$ powder in the visible light region. For the methylene blue decomposition, the decomposition efficiency of $TiO_2$ powder was also higher than that of $TiO_2$ film.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.35-43
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• 2021

The application of nature-based solutions, such as low impact development (LID) techniques and green infrastructures, for stormwater management continue to increase in urban areas. Plants are usually utilized in LID facilities to improve their pollutant removal efficiency through phytoremediation. Plants can also reduce maintenance costs and frequency by means of reducing the accumulation of pollutants inside the facility. Plants have long been used in different LID facilities; however, proper plant-selection should be considered since different species tend to exhibit varying pollutant uptake capabilities. This study was conducted to investigate the pollutant uptake capabilities of plants by comparing the dry matter and nutrient contents of different plant species in roadsides, LID facilities, and landscape areas. The dry matter content of the seven herbaceous plants, shrubs, and arboreal trees ranged from 60% to 90%. In terms of nutrient content, the total nitrogen (TN) concentration in the tissues of herbaceous plants continued to increase until the summer season, but gradually decreased in the succeeding periods. TN concentrations in shrubs and trees were observed to be high from early spring up to the late summer seasons. All plant samples collected from the LID facility exhibited high TP content, indicating that the vegetative components of LID systems are efficient in removing phosphorus. Overall, the nutrient content of different plant species was found to be highly influenced by the urban environment which affected the stormwater runoff quality. The results of this study can be beneficial for establishing plant selection criteria for LID facilities.

• Horticultural Science & Technology
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.751-762
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• 2015

This study was performed to investigate the stability of soil moisture in controlling air ventilation rate within a horizontal biofilter, and to compare removal efficiency (RE) of indoor air pollutants including fine dust, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and formaldehyde (HCHO), depending on whether dieffenbachias (Diffenbachia amoena) were planted in the biofilter. The relative humidity, air temperature, and soil moisture contents showed stable values, regardless of the presence of D. amoena, and the plants grew normally in the biofilter. REs for number of fine dust particles (PM10 and PM2.5) within the biofilter filled with only soil were at least 30% and 2%, respectively. REs for number of fine dust particles (PM10 and PM2.5) within the biofilter including the plants were above 40% and 4%, respectively. RE for fine dust (PM10) weight was above 4% and 20%, respectively, in the biofilter containing only soil or soil together with plants. In the case of the biofilter filled with only soil, REs for xylene, ethylbenzene, toluene or total VOC (T-VOC) were each more than 63%; however, REs for benzene and formaldehyde (HCHO) were above 22% and 38%, respectively. In the biofilter with the plants, REs for xylene, ethylbenzene, toluene, and T-VOC were each above 72%, and REs for benzene and HCHO were above 39%. Thus, RE of the biofilter integrated with plants was found to be higher for volatile organic compounds than for fine dust. Hence, the biofilter was very effective for indoor air quality improvement and the effect was higher when integrated with plants.