• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.138-143
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• 2013

This paper studied the possibility to predict a mechanical property variation from changes in created carbonyl bands by irradiating the surface of high-density polyethylene with short-wavelength ultraviolet radiation of 254 nm to induce a fast chemical degradation. The meaning of this study lies in checking whether a mechanical property change with the same chemical property as the induced optical deterioration is caused by using a UVC lamp with high photon energy instead of optical deterioration via xenon arc light source and outdoor exposure test via natural sunlight requiring a long time. The mechanical strength of high-density polyethylene checked by a tensile test and a creep destruction test showed a similar tendency with CI changes. In particular, the yield strength and elongation had a close relationship with the exposure time to ultraviolet radiation. Accordingly, this paper presented a method to grasp the mechanical property change outdoors requiring a long time more fast through the relationship between the mechanical property change and the carbonyl index using a UVC lamp causing the fast surface degradation.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.215-224
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• 2017

Arsenic (As) is known to be the most toxic element and frequently detected in groundwater environment. Inorganic As exists as arsenite [As(III)] and arsenate [As(V)] in reduced and oxidized environments, respectively. It has been reported that the toxicity of arsenite is much higher than that of arsenate and furthermore arsenite shows relatively higher mobility in aqueous environments. For this reason, there have been numerous researches on the process for oxidation of arsenite to arsenate to reduce the toxicity of arsenic. In particular, photooxidation has been considered to be simple, economical, and efficient to attain such goal. This study was conducted to evaluate the applicability of naturally-occurring goethite as a photocatalyst to substitute for $TiO_2$ which has been mostly used in the photooxidation processes so far. In addition, the effects of several factors on the overall performance of arsenite photocatalytic oxidation process were evaluated. The results show that the efficiency of the process was affected by total concentration of dissolved cations rather than by the kind of those cations and also the relatively higher pH conditions seemed to be more favorable to the process. In the case of coexistence of arsenite and arsenate, the removal tendency by adsorption onto goethite appeared to be different between arsenite and arsenate due to their different affinities with goethite, but any effect on the photocatalytic oxidation of arsenite was not observed. In terms of effect of humic acid on the process, it is likely that the higher concentration of humic acid reduced the overall performance of the arsenite photocatalytic oxidation as a result of competing interaction of activated oxygen species, such as hydroxyl and superoxide radicals, with arsenite and humic acid. In addition, it is revealed that the injection of oxygen gas improved the process because oxygen contributes to arsenite oxidation as an electron acceptor. Based on the results of the study, consequently, the photocatalytic oxidation of aqueous arsenite using goethite seems to be greatly feasible with the optimization of process.

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.245-253
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• 2015

The performance of $TiO_2$ photo-catalytic oxidation process is significantly dependent on the amount of hydroxyl radicals produced during the process, and it is an essential prerequisite to quantify its production. However, precise and accurate methods for quantification of hydroxyl radicals have not been developed so far. For this reason, this study was initiated to compare existing methods for analysis of hydroxyl radicals produced by $TiO_2$ photo-catalytic oxidation and to propose a new method to overcome the limitation of established methods. To simulate $TiO_2$ photo-catalytic oxidation process, Degussa P25 which has been widely used as a standard $TiO_2$ photo-catalyst was used with the dose of 0.05 g/L. The light source of process was UVC mercury low-pressure lamp (11 W, $2,975mW/cm^2$). The results indicate that both potassium iodide (KI)/UV-vis spectrometer and terephthalic acid (TPA)/fluorescence spectrometer methods could be applied to qualitatively measure hydroxyl radicals via detection of triiodide ion ($I_3{^-}$) and 2-hydroxyterephthalic acid which are produced by reactions of iodine ion ($I^-$) and TPA with hydroxyl radicals, respectively. However, it was possible to quantitatively measure hydroxyl radicals using TPA method coupled with high-performance liquid chromatograph (HPLC). The analytical results using TPA/HPLC method show that hydroxyl radical of 0.013 M was produced after 8 hours operation of photo-catalytic oxidation under specific experimental conditions of this study. The proposed method is expected to contribute to precise the evaluation of the performance of photo-catalytic oxidation process.