• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.131-134
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• 2005

Anaerobic reductive dechlorination of tetrachloroethylene(PCE) to ethylene was investigated by performing laboratory experiments using semi-continuous flow two-in-series soil columns. The columns were packed with soils obtained from TCE-contaminated site in Korea. Site ground water containing lactate(as electron donor and/or carbon source) and PCE was pumped into the soil columns. During the first operation with a period of 50 days, injected mass ratio of lactate and PCE was 620:1 and incomplete reductive dechlorination of PCE to cis-DCE was observed in the columns. However, complete dechlorination of PCE to ethylene was observed when the mass ratio increased to 5,050:1 in the second operation, suggesting that the electron donor might be limited during the first operation period. During the degradation of cis-DCE to ethylene, the concentration of hydrogen was $22{\sim}29mM$. These positive results indicate that the TCE-contaminated groundwater investigated in this study could be remediated through biological anaerobic reductive dechlorination processes.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.68-76
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• 2006

Anaerobic reductive dechlorination of tetrachloroethylene (PCE) to ethylene was investigated by performing laboratory experiments using semi-continuous flow two-in-series soil columns. The columns were packed with soils obtained from TCE-contaminated site in Korea. Site ground water containing lactate (as electron donor and/or carbon source) and PCE was pumped into the soil columns. During the first operation with a period of 50 days, injected mass ratio of lactate and PCE was 620:1 and incomplete reductive dechlorination of PCE to cis-DCE was observed in the columns. However, complete dechlorination of PCE to ethylene was observed when the mass ratio increased to 5,050:1 in the second operation, suggesting that the electron donor might be limited during the first operation period. Dechlorination rate of PCE to cis-DCE was $0.62{\sim}1.94\;{\mu}mol$ PCE/L pore volume/d and $2.76\;{\mu}mol$ cis-DCE/ L pore volume/d for that for cis-DCE to ethylene, resulting that net dechlorination rate in the system was 1.43 umol PCE/L pore volume/d. During the degradation of cis-DCE to ethylene, the concentration of hydrogen in column groundwater was $22{\sim}29\;mM$ and $10{\sim}64\;mM$ for the degradation of PCE to cis-DCE. These positive results indicate that the TCE-contaminated groundwater investigated in this study could be remediated through in-situ biological anaerobic reductive dechlorination processes.

• 한국환경농학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.07a
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• pp.128-135
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• 2011

Consortia demonstrated the high capacities of anaerobic degradation of various aromatic compounds, which were successfully enriched from gley paddy soils under different conditions. Phenol and cresol was decomposed anaerobically using nitrate, ferric oxide or sulfate as electron acceptors. Biphenyl was degraded to $CO_2$, especially without addition of external electron acceptor. Alkylphenols with middle length of alkyl chain, were co-metaboliocally degraded with the presence of hydroxylbenzoate as the co-substrate under nitrate reducing conditions. The microorganisms responsible for the anaerobic co-metabolism was Thauera sp. Reductive dechlorination activity was also observed for polychlorophenols, fthalide, polychlorinated biphenyls, polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins with the presence of lactate, formate or $H_2$ as electron donor. The fthalide dechlorinator was classified as Dehalobacter sp. Coupling of two physiologically-distinct anaerobic consortia, aromatic ring degrader and reductive dechlorinator, resulted in the mineralization of pentachlorophenol under anaerobic conditions. These results suggested that gley paddy soils harbored anaerobic microbial community with versatile capacity degrading aromatic compounds under anaerobic conditions.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.114-121
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• 2010

Oxygen sensitivity and substrate requirement have been known as possible reasons for the intricate growth of Dehalococcoides spp. and limiting factors of for routinely applying bioaugmentation using anaerobic Dehalococcoides-containing microbes for remediating chlorinated organic compounds. To explore the effect of the short-term exposure of the short-term exposure of oxygen on Dehalococcoides capability, dechlorination performance, and hydrogen production fermentation from formate, an anaerobic reductive dechlorination mixed-culture (Evanite culture) including dehalococcoides spp. was in this study. In the results, once the mixed-culture were exposed to oxygen, trichloroethylene (TCE) degradation rate decreased and it was not fully recovered even addition of excess formate for 40 days. In contrast, hydrogen was continuously produced by hydrogen-fermentation process even under oxygen presence. The results indicate that although the oxygen-exposed cells cannot completely dechlorinate TCE to ethylene (ETH), hydrogen fermentation process was not affected by oxygen presence. These results suggest that dechlorinating microbes may more sensitive to oxygen than fermenting microbes, and monitoring dechlorinators activity may be critical to achieve an successful remediation of a TCE contaminated-aquifer through bioaugmentation using Dehalococcoides spp..

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.158-161
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• 2004

Chlorinated aliphatic hydrocarbons (CAHs) especially perchlorethylene (PCE) and trichlooethylene (TCE) are common groundwater contaminants in Korea. PCE and TCE were often reductively dechiorinated in an aquifer. Several isolates dechlorinate PCE to TCE or cis-1,2 dichloroethylene (c-DCE) were obtained from contaminated and pristine sites in USA and Europe. However in Korea, no information on indigenous microorganism being involved in reductive dechlorination of PCE and TCE is available and different dechlorinating microorganisms might be reside in Korea, since geochemical, and hydrogeological conditions are different, compared to those in the other sites. So we evaluate that: 1) if reductive dechlorinating microorganisms are present in PCE-contaminated site in Korea, 2) if so, what kinds of microorganisms are present; 3) to what extent PCE is reductively dechlorinated. As a results in some PCE-contaminated aquifers in Korea other dechlorinating microorganisms but Dehalococcoides ethenogenes may be responsible for PCE dechlorination. More detailed molecular works are required to evaluate that different dechlorinating microorganisms would reside in Korea.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.177-183
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• 2008

Ex-situ reductive dechlorination of carbon tetrachloride (CT) by iron sulfide in a batch reactor was characterized in this study. Reactor scaled-up by 3.5 L was used to investigate the effect of reductant concentration on removal efficiency and process optimization for ex-situ degradation. The experiment was conducted by using both liquid-phase and gas-phase volume at pH 8.5 in anaerobic condition. For 1 mM of initial CT concentration, the removal of the target compound was 98.9% at 6.0 g/L iron sulfide. Process optimization for ex-situ treatment was performed by checking the effect of transition metal and mixing time on synthesizing iron sulfide solution, and by determining of the regeneration time. The effect of Co(II) as transition metal was shown that the reaction rate was slightly improved but the improvement was not that outstanding. The result of determination on the regeneration time indicated that regenerating reductant capacity after $1^{st}$ treatment of target compound was needed. Due to the high removal rates of CT, ex-situ reductive dechlorination in batch reactor can be used for basic treatment for the chlorinated compounds.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.11-18
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• 2024

Recently, enhanced in situ bioremediation using slow substrate release techniques has been actively researched for managing TCE-contaminated groundwater. This study conducted a lab-scale batch reactor experiment to evaluate the feasibility of natural attenuation for TCE dechlorination using microsized corn-oil droplet (MOD) as an activator considering the following three factors: 1) TCE dechlorination in the presence or absence of MOD; 2) TCE dechlorination in the presence or absence of inactivator of native microbial activity; and 3) MOD concentration effects on TCE dechlorination. Batch reactors were constructed using site groundwater and soil in which Dehalococcoides bacteria were present. Without MOD, TCE was decomposed into dichloroethylene (DCE). However, other by-products of TCE dechlorination were not detected. With MOD, DCE, vinyl chloride (VC), and ethylene (ETH) were sequentially observed. This result confirmed that MOD effectively supplied electrons to complete dechlorination of TCE to ETH. However, when an excess of MOD was provided, it formed unfavorable conditions for anaerobic digestion because dechlorination reaction did not proceed while propionic acid was accumulated after DCE was generated. Therefore, if an appropriate amount of MOD is supplied, MOD can be effectively used as a natural reduction activator to promote biodegradation in an aquifer contaminated by TCE.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2003.09a
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• pp.136-139
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• 2003

The combined effect of bioaugmentation of dechlorinating bacterial cultures and addition of iron powder (Fe$^{0}$ ) on reductive dechlorination of tetrachloroethylene (PCE) and other chlorinated ethylenes in a artificially contaminated soil slurry (60$\mu$mo1es PCE/kg soil) were tested. Two different anaerobic bacterial cultures, a pure bacterial culture of Desulfitobacterium sp. strain Y-51 capable of dechlorinating PCE to cis-1, 2-dechloroethylene (cis-DCE) and the other enrichment culture PE-1 capable of dechlorinating PCE completely to ethylene, were used for the bioaugmentation test. Both treatments introduced with the strain Y-51 and PE-1 culture (3mg dry cell weight/kg soil) showed conversion of PCE to cis-DCE within 40 days. The treatments added with Fe$^{0}$ (0.1 -1.0 %(w/w)) alone to the soil slurry resulted in extended PCE dechlorination to ethylene and ethane and the, dechlorination rate depended on the amount of Fe$^{0}$ added. The combined use of the bacterial cultures with Fe$^{0}$ (0.1-1.0%) showed the higher PCE dechlorination rate than the separated application and the pattern of PCE dechlorination and end-product formation was different from those of the separated application. These results suggested that the combined application of Fe$^{0}$ and the bactrial culture, specially the complete dechlorinating enrichment culture such as PE-1 culture, would be practically effective for remediation of PCE contaminated soil.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.125-131
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• 2009

Reductive dechlorination of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and its toxicity change were predicted by the linear free energy relationship (LFER) model to assess the zero-valent iron (ZVI) and anaerobic dechlorinating bacteria (ADB) as electron donors in PCDDs dechlorination. Reductive dechlorination of PCDDs involves 256 reactions linking 76 congeners with highly variable toxicities, so is challenging to assess the overall effect of this process on the environmental impact of PCDD contamination. The Gibbs free energies of PCDDs in aqueous solution were updated to density functional theory (DFT) calculation level from thermodynamic results of literatures. All of dechlorination kinetics of PCDDs was evaluated from the linear correlation between the experimental dechlorination kinetics of PCDDs and the calculated thermodynamics of PCDDs. As a result, it was predicted that over 100 years would be taken for the complete dechlorination of octachlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxin (OCDD) to non-chlorinated compound (dibenzo-p-dioxin, DD), and the toxic equivalent quantity (TEQ) of PCDDs could increase to 10 times larger from initial TEQ with the dechlorination process. The results imply that the single reductive dechlorination using ZVI or ADB is not suitable for the treatment strategy of PCDDs contaminated soil, sediment and fly ash. This LFER approach is applicable for the prediction of dechlorination process for organohalogen compounds and for the assessment of electron donating system for treatment strategies.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.49-55
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• 2012

A 1.28 L-batch reactor and continuous-flow stirred tank reactor (CFSTR) fed with formate and trichloroethene (TCE) were operated for 120 days and 56 days, respectively, to study the effect of formate as electron donor on anaerobic reductive dechlorination (ARD) of TCE to cis-1,2-dichloroethylene (c-DCE), vinyl chloride (VC), and ethylene (ETH). In batch reactor, injected 60 ${\mu}mol$ TCE was completely degraded in the presence of 20% hydrogen gas ($H_2$) in less than 8 days by anaerobic dechlorination mixed-culture (300 mg-soluble protein), Evanite Culture with ability to completely degrade tetrachloroethene (PCE) and -TCE to ETH under anaerobic conditions. Once the formate was used as electron donor instead of hydrogen gas in batch or chemostat system, the TCE-dechlorination rate decreased and acetate production rate increased. It indicates that the concentration of hydrogen produced in both systems is possibly more close to threshold for homoacetogenesis process. Soluble protein concentration of Evanite culture during the batch test increased from 300 mg to 688 mg for 120 days. Through the protein monitoring, we confirmed an increase of microbial population during the reactor operation. In CFSTR test, TCE was fed continuously at 9.9 ppm (75.38 ${\mu}mol/L$) and the influent formate feed concentration increased stepwise from 1.3 mmol/L to 14.3 mmol/L. Injected TCE was accumulated at 18 days of HRT, but TCE was completely degraded at 36 days of HRT without accumulation of the injected-TCE during the left of experiment period, getting $H_2$ from fermentative hydrogen production of injected formate. Although c-DCE was also accumulated for 23 days after beginning of CFSTR operation, it reached steady-state in the presence of excessive formate. We also evaluated microbial dynamic of the culture at different chemical state in the reactor by DGGE (denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis).