• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• v.5 no.6
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• pp.469-474
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• 2000

In order to enhance the degradation efficiency of waste activated sludge (WAS) by thermophilic aerobic digestion, an ultrasonic pretreatment was examined. It was observed that ultrasonic pretreatment increased the solubilization of organic matter in the WAS and that the solubilization ratio of the organics increased during the first 30 min but did not extensively increase thereafter. Therefore, a pretreatment time of 30 min was determined to be the economical pretreatment time from the experimental results. From the digestion experiments, which was conducted using the WAS collected from an oil refinery plant in Inchon, Korea, investigating the effects of an ultrasonic pretreatment on thermophilic aerobic digestion, it was confirmed that the proposed ultrasonic pretreatment was effective at enhancing the release of the cellular components in WAS and the degradation of released components in the thermophilic aerobic digestion.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.611-616
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• 2011

The impacts of ultrasonic pretreatment on the biodegradability of domestic sewage sludge were evaluated through a series of anaerobic digestion experiments in batch system. The gas and methane production from the sludge samples pretreated by an ultrasonic tool with different durations were measured with time. Although the biogas production increased with the extent of sludge solubilization and the period of ultrasonic pretreatment, the enhancement of sludge biodegradability was much more sensitive to the pretreatment for the relatively short periods. Most of the enhanced biodegradability by the pretreatment was appeared in the early stage of anaerobic digestion, less than 6 days. The maximum biogas production per day was observed between 4 to 6 days when the sludge was pretreated less than 10 minutes while it was obtained in the beginning for the sludge pretreated longer periods. The results suggest that the repeated alternation of low strength ultrasonic pretreatment and anaerobic digestion may be more effective than the combination of one time pretreatment for a relatively long period and following anaerobic digestion.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.567-573
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• 2003

The pretreatment process was carried out to solubilize the sewage sludge for enhancing its biodegradability using alkaline treatment, ultrasonic treatment(15kHz), ozone treatment and different combination of these three methods: alkaline followed by ultrasonic as well as ozone, and ultrasonic followed by alkaline. The solubilization efficiency was evaluated based on the SCOD/TCOD ratio and VSS/TS ratio. In results, the proper condition of alkaline treatment was shown as 30meq/l of NaOH, pH 12 and 3hours of reaction time. Solubilization efficiency increased to 17% from initial 2% based on SCOD/TCOD ratio under this condition. In ultrasonic treatment, the higher ultrasonic power, the longer treatment time and the lower sludge volume resulted in higher solubilization respectively. There was a rapid increase in solubilization efficiency after 20 minute, then it was measured as 32% of SCOD/TCOD ratio in 1 hour at a ultrasonic power of 1,300W with 1/sludge. Solubilization efficiencies in combined treatment using alkaline and ultrasonic were 47-53% higher than single treatment at a sonicated time of 1 hour. Ozone treatment followed by alkaline treatment also represented the enhanced solubilization compared to ozone treatment. Therefore, ultrasonic or ozone treatment assisted by alkaline could achieve the short treatment time as well as high solubilizetion efficiency.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.211-218
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• 2007

The objectives of this study have been carried out to investigate the solubilization of municipal sewage sludge by single and dual frequency ultrasonic pretreatment, and the methane production characteristics of pretreated sewage sludge by specific methanogenic activity test for sewage sludge reduction. The waste activated sludge was collected from thickened tank of Suyoung sewage treatment plant in Busan city, and its concentration was adjusted to 1.0% total solids. Ultrasonic frequency was varied 15, 20, 15+20 kHz, and acoustic density was used a maximum 176W/L. The dual frequency ultrasonic pretreatment was found to be more effective than single frequency ultrasonic in the solubilization rate and methane production. The $SCOD_{Cr}/TCOD_{Cr}$, rate were 15.2%, 13.9%, 17.0% with single frequency of 15 kH2, 20 kHz, dual frequency of 15+20 kHz, respectively. The application of dual frequency ultrasound for sewage sludge pretreatment can be interest for sewage treatment plants having problems in sludge treatment and disposal.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.136-140
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• 2009

To improve the carbon recovery yield of chemical pretreatment in soil and sediment for $^{14}C$ age dating using AMS (Accelerator Mass Spectrometry), we have developed ultrasonic method in chemical pretreatment to replace with stirring method which has been generally used in each step of humic acid extraction for soil and sediment samples. Extraction conditions such as ultrasonic power, temperature and reaction time have been optimized. Six times higher carbon recovery yield could be obtained from low carbon content samples using ultrasonic method. We also compared the dating results by AMS obtained using ultrasonic method with the ages of samples treated by the stirring method. It was found that this new method could be applied to the pretreatment process of low carbon content samples for AMS age dating without effects on the dated ages, and with highly improved carbon recovery yields.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.733-740
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• 2002

The effects on dewaterability and settlability of wastewater sludge according to acid and ultrasonic pretreatment which was expected to change ECP (exocellular polymers) compounds in the sludge and bulk solution was investigated. Though ECP which attached to the sludge could stimulate coagulation of sludge particles by bridging effect, but ECP in the bulk solution deteriorated dewaterability and settlability of the sludge on the contrary. That is as the pH of the solution was decreased to 3 gradually by acid treatment, proportionally ECP in the bulk solution was attached to the sludge flocs and resulted in improvement of dewaterability and settlability of the sludge. In case of ultrasonic pretreatment, with proportional to the intensity and duration of ultrasonic application, ECP was detached and extracted from sludge flocs and these phenomena deteriorated dewaterability and settlability. Also because of the increasement of minute sludge particles according to ultrasonic, dewaterability became so much the worse.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.84-89
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• 2011

In this study, individual(alkaline, ultrasonic) and combined(alkaline+ultrasonic) pretreatment effect on sewage sludge solubilization was investigated. COD solubilization rates increased with the dose of NaOH added: solubilization reached 27.6%. Additional alkaline agents did not increase solubilization further. Ultrasonic pretreatment achieved 33~39% solubilization when 140 W/L amplitude. In(alkaline(pre-treatment)+ultrasonic (after-treatment)) treatment, solubilization increased as the combined intensity in creased($70.4{\pm}9.4%$). SCOD rising rate(0.076) was achieved.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.98-105
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• 2007

The objectives of this study were to demonstrate that enhanced anaerobic digestion could be achieved by adopting ultrasonic cavitation pretreatment on the basis of the biogas production and to compare the simulation results of ADM1 (Anaerobic Digestion Model No. 1) with results of the experimentally operated digester the ultrasonic pretreatment of sewage sludge showed the hindered effect on the dewaterbility and the increase of SCOD production. In this study, four sets of lab-scale anaerobic digester were operated with untreated(control), 30 min, 60 min and 90 min ultrasonic pretreated sludge. TCOD removal efficiencies in digesters of control, 30, 60, 90 min sonicated sludge were 31.9%, 37.9, 38.5% and42.2%, and 75 removal were 15.9%, 20.8%, 21.5%, 24.1% respectively. Also more biogas was produced gradually with the increased sludge loading and the pretreatment time. Overall the simulation results had a correspondence tendency with the experimental efficiencies.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.897-905
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• 2012

Based on the activated sludge model, a simple aerobic digestion model which represents the aerobic sludge digestion by sequencing batch reactor(SBR) equipped with ultrasonicator was composed and performed in this study. The results are as follows. Aerobic digestion efficiency can be increased by adopting ultrasonic pretreatment. For the 5 days of SRT, 24 % of particulate component is predicted to be removed by ultrasonic pretreatment and aerobic digestion. This is 7 %p higher than that of conventional aerobic digestion. A Hybrid SBR aerobic digestion combined with ultrasonication shows higher digestion efficiency than aerobic digestion and ultrasonic pretreatment system. In case of this hybrid system, the digestion efficiency was predicted up to 49 % when the ultrasonication was performed every 2 hours, repeatedly. However, excessive treatment like every hours of ultrasonication in an aerobic digestion process results in adverse effect on TCOD removal because biomass disintegrated completely and the solubilized COD can not be used for the biomass synthesis again.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.185-190
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• 2013

In the present study, $Ni-TiO_2$ composite coatings were electrodeposited in a sulfamate bath containing $TiO_2$ particles. The influence of the ultrasonic treatment on the co-deposition of $TiO_2$ particles in the coating and the hardness of the electrodeposited $Ni-TiO_2$ composite has been investigated. Three different ultrasonic treatments (pretreatment before the electrodeposition (pre-UT), pretreatment + applied during the electrodeposition (UT), and the electrodeposition without the ultrasonic treatment (w/o UT)) were performed. The $Ni-TiO_2$ composite coatings are characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), image analyzer, and hardness tester. Comparison of results indicates that the volume fraction is more important factor than the agglomerated particle size in terms of the strength improvement, and the strength of the electrodeposited $Ni-TiO_2$ composite coatings is enhanced with pre-UT condition.