• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.459-482
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• 2006

A geochemical approach to the long-term safety of waste disposal is discussed in connection with the significance of actinides, which shall deliver the major radioactivity inventory subsequent to the relatively short-term decay of fission products. Every power reactor generates transuranic (TRU) elements: plutonium and minor actinides (Np, Am, Cm), which consist chiefly of long-lived nuclides emitting alpha radiation. The amount of TRU actinides generated in a fuel life period is found to be relatively small (about 1 wt% or less in spent fuel) but their radioactivity persists many hundred thousands years. Geological confinement of waste containing TRU actinides demands, as a result, fundamental knowledge on the geochemical behavior of actinides in the repository environment for a long period of time. Appraisal of the scientific progress in this subject area is the main objective of the present paper. Following the introductory discussion on natural radioactivities, the nuclear fuel cycle is briefly brought up with reference to actinide generation and waste disposal. As the long-term disposal safety concerns inevitably with actinides, the significance of the aquatic actinide chemistry is summarized in two parts: the fundamental properties relevant to their aquatic behavior and the geochemical reactions in nanoscopic scale. The constrained space of writing allows discussion on some examples only, for which topics of the primary concern are selected, e.g. apparent solubility and colloid generation, colloid-facilitated migration, notable speciation of such processes, etc. Discussion is summed up to end with how to make a geochemical approach available for the long-term disposal safety of nuclear waste or for the performance assessment (PA) as known generally.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.31 no.9
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• pp.1323-1329
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• 2021

Micro-scale magnetic beads are widely used for isolation of proteins, DNA, and cells, leading to the development of in vitro diagnostics. Efficient isolation of target biomolecules is one of the keys to developing a simple and rapid point-of-care diagnostic. A zinc finger protein (ZFP) is a double-stranded (ds) DNA-binding domain, providing a useful scaffold for direct reading of the sequence information. Here, we utilized two engineered ZFPs (Stx2-268 and SEB-435) to detect the Shiga toxin (stx2) gene and the staphylococcal enterotoxin B (seb) gene present in foodborne pathogens, Escherichia coli O157 and Staphylococcus aureus, respectively. Engineered ZFPs are immobilized on a paramagnetic bead as a detection platform to efficiently isolate the target dsDNA-ZFP bound complex. The small paramagnetic beads provide a high surface area to volume ratio, allowing more ZFPs to be immobilized on the beads, which leads to increased target DNA detection. The fluorescence signal was measured upon ZFP binding to fluorophore-labeled target dsDNA. In this study, our system provided a detection limit of ≤ 60 fmol and demonstrated high specificity with multiplexing capability, suggesting a potential for development into a simple and reliable diagnostic for detecting multiple pathogens without target amplification.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.303-309
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• 1994

To develop the treatment process of swine wastewater using Rhodopseudomonas palustris KK14 with high utilizable ability of organic acids, some operating conditions were investigated and optimized in flask-scale and laboratory-scale reactors. The optimal operating conditions in photosynthetic bacteria (PSB) reactor of semi-continuous type were obtained at HRT 6 day, 5% (v/v/day) seeding rate of PSB sludge and 10% (v/v/day) returning rate of PSB return sludge. Under the above operating condition, COD level of the wastewater (initial COD: 10 g/l) was reduced to about 1.7 g/l after 4 days treatment and MLSS was held constant at $4{\sim}5\;g$ per liter. In laboratory-scale process consisted of 5.2 l anaearobic digestion reactor and 15 l PSB reactor, the total removal rates of COD and BOD were increased to 95% and 96% by the continuous operation for 5.36 days, respectively, showing $3kg\;COD/m^3/day$ COD loading rate and 1.1 Kg COD/Kg MLSS/day sludge loading rate in PSB reactor. The offensive odor was considerably removed through the treatment process of swine wastewater.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.332-338
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• 2017

The objective of this work was to study the low temperature vacuum adsorption technology applicable to small and medium scale painting plants, which is the main emission source of volatile organic compounds. The low-temperature vacuum swing adsorption (VSA) technology is the way that the adsorbates are removed by reducing pressure at low temperature ($60{\sim}90^{\circ}C$) to compensate disadvantages of the existing thermal swing adsorption (TSA) technology. Commercial activated carbon was used and the absorption and desorption characteristics of toluene, a representative VOCs, were tested on a lab scale. Also based on the lab scale experimental results, a $30m^3min^{-1}$ VSA system was designed and applied to the actual painting factory to assess the applicability of the VSA system in the field. As a result of lab scale experiments, a 2 mm pellet type activated carbon showed higher toluene adsorption capacity than that of using 4 mm pellet type, and was used in a practical scale VSA system. Optimum conditions for desorption experiments were $80{\sim}90^{\circ}C$ and 100 torr. In the practical scale system, the adsorption/desorption cycles were repeated 95 times. As a result, VOCs discharged from the painting factory can be effectively removed upto 98% or more even after repeated adsorption/desorption cycles when using VSA technology indicating potential field applicabilities.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.177-185
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• 2009

The failure analysis of scales deposited on automotive thermostat housing has been carried out. Observations using energy dispersive spectroscopy and electron probe micro analyzer indicate that the main components of scales are some of additives of coolant used. For a detailed investigation of organic matters pyrolysis-GC/MS is employed. The result shows that the main organic component is benzoic acid and furthermore, a small amount of acetophenone, benzene and phenyl group is detected. Based on the results of failure analysis performed, the scales on automotive thermostat housing appear due to the deposition of coolant components, followed by crevice corrosion, into gap between housing and rubber horse. New accelerated test methodology, which could mimic the scale formation and the crevice corrosion on thermostat housing, is developed considering the above results. In order to reproduce the real operating conditions, the accelerating factors, i.e. temperature and humidity, are changed and programmed. The reproducibility of the accelerated test proposed is confirmed after analyzing the scales obtained from the accelerated test.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.186-193
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• 1972

For efficient micro scale syntheses of Rose $Bengal-^{131}I$, $Hippuran-^{131}I$, and $H.S.A.-^{131}I$, the dependence of labelling yields on pH, on salt contents, and on the volume of buffer solution in the reaction mixtures as well as the reaction apparatus were studied. pH of 5.6 was optimum for preparation of both Rose $Bengal-_{131}I$ and Hippuran $-^{13}I$ but pH of 8.5 was optimum for preparation of $H.S.A.-^{131}I$. Salt in the reaction mixtures hindered drastically the formation of $Hippuran-^{131}I$ but it slightly increased the labelling yield of H.S.A.. The compactly closed reaction vessels were effective for preparations of both Rose $Bengal-^{131}I$and $Hippuran-^{131}I$ in small volume. Thereupon, the labelling procedures were modified to bring about higher labelling yields and better reproducibilities. By these newly established procedures, the labelling yields of Rose $Bengal-^{131}I$ and $Hippuran-^{131}I$ could be increased even with the home-produced sodium $iodide-^{131}I$ solution containing reducing agent.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.385-393
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• 2019

Potential fire, explosion and safety hazards exist in medium- or small-scale chemical plants using radical batch reaction processes due to the various conditions of materials, works or products. To minimize the potential damage, a study was conducted on qualitative hazard analysis using the HAZOP technique, which is a typical method for a qualitative risk assessment and analysis of the potential risks encountered in these chemical plants. For this purpose, a domestic chemical plant, which produces the acrylic resin by a radical batch reaction process, was selected and a risk assessment and analysis according to the procedure of HAZOP method was performed for the process. As the result of the study, to prevent the hazard, the input of inert gas and the installation of a pressure gauge were indispensable. In addition, the initiator and monomer should also be separated, and inhibiting substances and equipment are also necessary to prevent a runaway reaction.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.313-318
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• 2014

The world is in need of sustainable and eco-friendly energy sources such as microalgal biodiesel due to global warming and fossil fuel shortages. In this study, we compared the effectiveness of liquid fertilizer produced from swine manure and agriculture grade solid fertilizers as nutrient sources for microalgal biomass production. Mixed culture (Chlorella spp., Scenedesmus spp., Stigeoclonium spp.; CSS) was cultivated for 28 days in Small Scale Raceway Pond (SSRP) using various nutrient sources (swine manure liquid fertilizer, agricultural solid fertilizer, and mixture of these two fertilizers). Biomass and lipid productivity of fertilizer mixture were the highest at 0.8 g/L and 5.8 mg/L/day, respectively. These results indicate that the fertilizer mixture can provide microalgae necessary nutrient sources for stable biodiesel production and biomass growth. In addition, overall cost of microalgal cultivation and subsequently biodiesel production would be significantly reduced.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.205-214
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• 2002

The reaction of gas-phase atomic hydrogen with hydrogen atoms chemisorbed on a silicon surface is studied by use of the classical trajectory approach. Especially, we have focused on the mechanism changes with the hydrogen surface coverage difference. On the sparsely covered surface, the gas atom interacts with the preadsorbed hydrogen atom and adjacent bare surface sites. In this case, it is shown that the chemisorption of H(g) is of major importance. Nearly all of the chemisorption events accompany the desorption of H(ad), i.e., adisplacement reaction. Although much less important than the displacement reaction, the formation of $H_2(g)$ is the second most significant reaction pathway. At gas temperature of 1800 K and surface temperature of 300 K, the probabilities of these two reactions are 0.750 and 0.065, respectively. The adsorption of H(g) without dissociating H(ad) is found to be negligible. In the reaction pathway forming $H_2$, most of the reaction energy is carried by $H_2(g)$. Although the majority of $H_2(g)$ molecules are produced in sub-picosecond, direct-mode collisions, there is a small amount of $H_2(g)$ produced in multiple impact collisions, which is characteristic of complex-mode collisions. On the fully covered surface, it has been shown that the formation of $H_2(g)$ is of major importance. All reactive events occur on a subpicosecond scale, following the Eley-Rideal mechanism. At gas temperature of 1800 K and surface temperature of 300 K, the probability of the $H_2(g)$ formation reaction is 0.082. In this case, neither the gas atom trapping nor the displacement reaction has been found.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.341-352
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• 2017

Butyl acetate is produced from acetic acid and butanol via an esterification reaction in a reactive distillation column. Entrainer can be used for efficient removal of produced water from the reaction region, leading to significant improvement of the column performance. Batch reactive distillation has clear advantages over continuous one in terms of flexibility and adaptability in a small plant. We studied batch and semi-batch reactive distillation processes through process simulation and pilot-scale experiments. We investigated process configuration and type of entrainer for improvement of the column performance and suggested a novel cyclic operation strategy using the semi-batch reactive distillation column. The cyclic strategy was shown to give relatively high production rate and stable operation.