• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.8-16
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• 2017

The importance of the biomass-based activated carbon as an adsorbent has been reviewed with emphasizing on the application in the fields of energy storage and environmental related problems. It is clear from the literature survey that beside surface area and pore volume, surface chemistry also plays important role in determining their usage in various field. The capacities of biomass-based activated carbon can be increased depending upon the choice of the biomass used and the pathway taken for their activation and hence they can be tailored for various applications. Accordingly, this review summarizes the role of biomass based activated carbon in different applications.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.32 no.11
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• pp.1357-1372
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• 2022

Heavy reliance on fossil fuels has been associated with increased climate disasters. As an alternative, microalgae have been proposed as an effective agent for biomass production. Several advantages of microalgae include faster growth, usage of non-arable land, recovery of nutrients from wastewater, efficient CO₂ capture, and high amount of biomolecules that are valuable for humans. Microalgae Chlorella spp. are a large group of eukaryotic, photosynthetic, unicellular microorganisms with high adaptability to environmental variations. Over the past decades, Chlorella has been used for the large-scale production of biomass. In addition, Chlorella has been actively used in various food industries for improving human health because of its antioxidant, antidiabetic, and immunomodulatory functions. However, the major restrictions in microalgal biofuel technology are the cost-consuming cultivation, processing, and lipid extraction processes. Therefore, various trials have been performed to enhance the biomass productivity and the lipid contents of Chlorella cells. This study provides a comprehensive review of lipid enhancement strategies mainly published in the last five years and aimed at regulating carbon sources, nutrients, stresses, and expression of exogenous genes to improve biomass production and lipid synthesis.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.622-628
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• 2016

This study investigated to understand the trend of international commercializing technologies and industrial status of the transportation biofuel based on lignocellulosic biomass. Two major commercializing technologies for the lignocellulosic biofuel are biochemical conversion technology and thermochemical conversion technology. It was reported that a total of 93 industrial companies were using lignocellulosic biomass of all facilities related to advanced biofuel. On the basis of commercial type, the biochemical conversion technology was identified to be the major technology in the lignocellulosic biofuel industries, showing 84% of all. Also the main products of commercial type industrial companies are bioethanol (1,155,000 tons/yr) and bio-oil (120,000 tons/yr), which are in a remarkably inadequate amount to substitute for the transportation biofuel worldwide. It was suggested that the transportation biofuel market was currently in need of further development in both technology and scale, and was in high demands of technological development and commercializing exertion.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.83-91
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• 2015

Biomass burning is known to be one of the main sectors emitting greenhouse gases as well as air pollutants. Unfortunately, the inventory of biomass burning sector has not been established well. We estimated greenhouse gas (GHG) and air pollution (AP) integrated emissions from biomass burning sector in Seoul during year 2010. The data of GHG and AP emissions from biomass burning, classified into open burning, residential fireplace and wood stove, meat cooking, fires, and cremation, were obtained from Statistics Korea and Seoul City. Estimation methodologies and emission factors were gathered from reports and published literatures. Estimated GHG and AP integrated emissions during year 2010 were $3,867tonCO_{2eq}$, and 2,320 tonAP, respectively. Major sources of GHG were forest fires ($1,533tonCO_{2eq}$) and waste open burning ($1,466tonCO_{2eq}$), while those of AP were meat cooking (1,240 tonAP) and fire incidence (907 tonAP). Total emissions by administrative district in Seoul, representing similar patterns in both GHG and AP, indicated that Seocho-gu and Gangseo-gu were the largest emitters whereas Jung-gu was the smallest emitter, ranged in $2{\sim}165tonCO_{2eq}$ and 0.1~8.31 tonAP. GHG emissions per $km^2$ showed different results from total emissions in that Gwanak-gu, Jungnang-gu, Gangdong-gu and Seodaemun-gu were the largest emitters, while Seocho-gu and Gangseo-gu were near-averaged emission districts, ranged in $0.2{\sim}21tonCO_{2eq}/km^2$. However, AP emissions per $km^2$ revealed relatively minor differences among districts, ranged in $2.3{\sim}6.1tonAP/km^2$.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.457-472
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• 2011

To elucidate the trophic role of heterotrophic nano- and microplankton (HNMP), we investigated their biomass, community structure, and herbivory in three different water masses, namely, south of Polar Front (SPF), Polar Front Zone (PFZ), the Sub-Antarcitc Front (SAF) in the Drake Passage in the Southern Ocean, during the austral summer in 2002. We observed a spatial difference in the relative importance of the dominant HNMP community in these water masses. Ciliates accounted for 34.7% of the total biomass on an average in the SPF where the concentration of chlorophyll-a was low with the dominance of pico- and nanophytoplankton. Moreover, the importance of ciliates declined from the SPF to the SAF. In contrast, heterotrophic dinoflagellates (HDFs) were the most dominant grazers in the PFZ where the concentration of chlorophyll-a was high with the dominance of net phytoplankton. HNMP biomass ranged from 321.9 to 751.4 $mgCm^{-2}$ and was highest in the PFZ and lowest in the SPF. This result implies that the spatial dynamic of HNMP biomass and community was significantly influenced by the composition and concentration of phytoplankton as a food source. On an average, 75.6%, 94.5%, and 78.9% of the phytoplankton production were consumed by HNMP in the SPF, PFZ, and SAF, respectively. The proportion of phytoplankton grazed by HNMP was largely determined by the composition and biomass of HNMP, as well as the composition of phytoplankton. However, the herbivory of HNMP was one of the most important loss processes affecting the biomass and composition of phytoplankton particularly in the PFZ. Our results suggest that the bulk of the photosynthetically fixed carbon was likely reprocessed by HNMP rather than contributing to the vertical flux in Drake Passage during the austral summer in 2002.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.8
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• pp.552-561
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• 2018

Biomass, a carbon-neutral resource, is an alternative energy source for exhaustion of fossil fuel and environmental problems. Most of energy production systems using biomass operate with a thermal chemical conversion method. Amongst them, gasification generates syngas and applies to boilers or engines for the production of heat and electricity. However, Tar could be formed during the production of syngas and it is condensed at low temperature which may cause to clog the pipelines and combustion chamber, ultimately resulting in decrease of process efficiency. Thus this work utilized water and oily materials such as soybean oil, waste cooking oil and mineral oil for scrubbing liquid. The removal efficiency of Tar appeared 97%, 70%, 63% and 30% for soybean oil, waste cooking oil, mineral oil and water respectively.

• Clean Technology
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.31-37
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• 2012

Biomass has become a major feedstock for bioenergy and other bio-based products because of its renewability and environmental benefits. Various researches have been done in the prediction of crucial characteristics of biomass, including the active utilization of spectroscopy data. Near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy has been widely used because of its attractive features: it's non-destructive and cost-effective producing fast and reliable analysis results. This work developed the multivariate statistical scheme for predicting weight loss profiles based on the utilization of NIR spectra data measured for six lignocellulosic biomass types. Wavelet analysis was used as a compression tool to suppress irrelevant noise and to select features or wavelengths that better explain NIR data. The developed scheme was demonstrated using real NIR data sets, in which different prediction models were evaluated in terms of prediction performance. In addition, the benefits of using right pretreatment of NIR spectra were also given. In our case, it turned out that compression of high-dimensional NIR spectra by wavelet and then PLS modeling yielded more reliable prediction results without handling full set of noisy data. This work showed that the developed scheme can be easily applied for rapid analysis of biomass.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.48 no.5
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• pp.651-665
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• 2020

Hydrolysis of biomass for the production of fermentable sugar can be improved by the addition of surfactants. In pulp and paper mills, lignin, which is a by-product of the pulping process, can be utilized as a fine chemical. In the hydrolysis process, lignin is one of the major inhibitors of the enzymatic breakdown cellulose into sugar monomer. Therefore, the conversion of lignin into a biosurfactant offers the opportunity to solve the waste problem and improve hydrolysis efficiency. In this study, lignin derivatives, a biosurfactant, was applied to enzymatic hydrolysis of various lignocellulosic biomass. This Biosurfactant can be prepared by reacting lignin with a hydrophilic polymer such as polyethylene glycol diglycidylethers (PEDGE). In this study, the effect of biosurfactants on the enzymatic hydrolysis of pretreated sweet sorghum bagasse (SSB), oil palm empty fruit bunch, and sugarcane trash with different lignin contents was investigated. The results show that lignin derivatives improve the enzymatic hydrolysis of the pretreated biomass with low lignin content, however, it has less influence on the enzymatic hydrolysis of other pretreated biomass with lignin content higher than 10% (w/w). The use of biosurfactant on SSB kraft pulp can increase the sugar yield from 45.57% to 81.49%.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.207-221
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• 2023

The increasing demand for clean energy requires considerable effort to find alternative energy sources, such as briquettes. This research aims to develop a charcoal briquette with added pine resin (API) that has excellent combustion speed and distinctive aroma. Briquettes are composed of charcoal, pine resin (concentration: 0%-30%), and starch (up to 7%). They are produced in several stages, including coconut shell pyrolysis in conventional combustion, to obtain charcoal for the briquette precursor. Briquette compaction is conducted by mixing and densifying the charcoal, pine resin, and starch using a hydraulic press for 3 min. The hydraulic press has a total surface area and diameter of 57.7 cm² and 3.5 cm, respectively. The briquettes are dried at different temperatures, reaching 70℃ for 24 h. The study results show that the briquettes have a thickness and diameter of up to 2 and 3.5 cm, respectively; moisture of 2.18%-2.62%; ash of 11.61%-13.98%; volatile matter of 27.15%-51.74%; and fixed carbon content of 40.24%-59.46%. The compressive strength of the briquettes is 186-540 kg/cm². Their calorific value is 5,338-6,120 kcal/kg, combusting at a high speed of 0.15-0.40 s. The methoxy naphthalene, phenol, benzopyrrole, and lauryl alcohol; ocimene, valencene, and cembrene are found in the API. The API briquette has several chemical compounds, such as musk ambrette, ocimene, sabinene, limonene, 1-(p-cumenyl) adamantane, butane, and propanal, which improve aroma, drug application, and fuel production. Accordingly, API briquettes have considerable potential as an alternative energy source and a health improvement product.