• Clean Technology
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.209-215
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• 2012

The performance and removal efficiencies of a pilot scale biofilter were estimated by using ammonia and hydrogen sulfide as the odorous gases. Expanded polyurethane foam coated with powdered activated carbon and zeolite was used as a biofilm supporting medium in the biofilter. Odorous gases from the sludge thickener of a municipal wastewater treatment plant were treated in the biofilter for 10 months and the inlet ammonia and hydrogen sulfide concentrations were 0.1-1.5 and 2-20 ppmv, respectively. The removal efficiencies reached about 100% at the empty bed retention time (EBRT) of 3.6-5 seconds except for the adaptation periods. The pressure drop of the biofilter caused by the gas flow was also low that the maximum attained was 31 mm $H_2O$ during the operation. Its stability was confirmed in the long term due to the fact that the biofilter and the polyurethane medium had a minimum plugging and compression. The microbial community on the medium is critical for the performance of the biofilter especially the distribution of ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and sulfur oxidizing bacteria (SOB). The distribution of Nitrosomonas sp. (AOB) and Thiobacillus ferroxidans (SOB) was confirmed by FISH (fluorescence in situ hybridization) analysis. The longer the operation time, the more microbial population observed. Also, the medium close to the gas inlet had more microbial population than the medium at the gas outlet of the biofilter.

• Strategy21
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• s.39
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• pp.5-46
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• 2016

North Korea's 4th nuclear test on Jan. 6 and following developments once again awakened the world into seriousness of the nuclear matters on the Korean peninsula. On March 2, UNSC adopted Resolution 2270 which is complemented by Seoul government's measures such as withdrawal from the Gaesung Industrial Complex (Feb. 9) and announcement of unilateral sanction (March 8). Seoul government also strongly urged the international community to strangle North Korea's 'financial resources.' The U.S., Japan, China, and other countries have issued unilateral sanctions to complement the UNSC measure. South Korea and the U.S. conducted their annual joint military drill (Resolve-Foal Eagle) in the largest-ever scale. North Korea, however, responded with demonstration of its nuclear capabilities and announcement of de facto 'nuclear-first' politics. North Korea test-fired a variety of delivery vehicles, threatened nuclear strikes against South Korea and the U.S., and declared itself as an 'invincible nuclear power armed with hydrogen bombs' at the 7th Workers 'Party Congress held in May, 2016. Considering the circumstantial evidences, the North's 4th nuclear test may have been a successful boosted fission bomb test. North Korea, and, if allowed to go on with its nuclear programs, will become a nuclear power armed with more than 50 nuclear weapons including hydrogen bombs. The North is already conducting nuclear blackmail strategy towards South Korea, and must be developing 'nuclear use' strategies. Accordingly, the most pressing challenge for the international community is to bring the North to 'real dialogue for denuclearization through powerful and consistent sanctions. Of course, China's cooperation is the key to success. In this situation, South Korea has urgent challenges on diplomacy and security fronts. A diplomatic challenge is how to lead China, which had shown dual attitudes between 'pressure and connivance' towards the North's nuclear matters pursuant to its military relations with the U.S, to participate in the sanctions consistently. A military one is how to offset the 'nuclear shadow effects' engendered by the North's nuclear blackmail and prevent its purposeful and non-purposeful use of nuclear weapons. Though South Korea's Ministry of Defense is currently spending a large portion of defense finance on preemption (kill-chain) and missile defense, they pose 'high cost and low efficiency' problems. For a 'low cost and high efficiency' of deterrence, South Korea needs to switch to a 'retaliation-centered' deterrence strategy. Though South Korea's response to the North's nuclear threat can theoretically be boiled down into dialogue, sanction and deterrence, now is the time to concentrate on strong sanction and determined deterrence since they are an inevitable mandatory course to destroy the North' nuclear-first delusion and bring it to a 'real denuclearization dialogue.'

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.21-30
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• 2015

Ceramic foams are prepared as positive images corresponding to a plastic foam structure which exhibits high porosities (85-90%). This structure makes the ceramic foams attractive as a catalyst in a dry reforming process, because it could reduce a high pressure drop problem. This problem causes low mass and heat transfers in the process. Furthermore, the reactants would shortly contact to catalyst surface, thus low conversion could occur. Therefore, this research addressed the preparation of dry reforming catalysts using a sol-gel catalyst preparation via a polymeric sponge method. The specific objectives of this work are to investigate the effects of polymer foam structure (such as porosity, pore sizes, and cell characteristics) on a catalyst performance and to observe the influences of catalyst preparation parameters to yield a replica of the original structure of polymeric foam. To accomplish these objectives industrial waste foams, polyurethane (PU) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) foams, were used as a polymeric template. Results indicated that the porosity of the polyurethane and polyvinyl alcohol foams were about 99% and 97%. Their average cell sizes were approximate 200 and 50 micrometres, respectively. The cell characteristics of polymer foams exhibited the character of a high permeability material that can be able to dip with ceramic slurry, which was synthesized with various viscosities, during a catalyst preparation step. Next, morphology of ceramic foams was explored using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and catalyst properties, such as; temperature profile of catalyst reduction, metal dispersion, and surface area, were also characterized by $H_2-TPR$ and $H_2-TPD$ techniques, and BET, respectively. From the results, it was found that metal-particle dispersion was relatively high about 5.89%, whereas the surface area of ceramic foam catalysts was $64.52m^2/g$. Finally, the catalytic behaviour toward hydrogen production through the dry reforming of methane using a fixed-bed reactor was evaluated under certain operating conditions. The approaches from this research provide a direction for further improvement of marketable environmental friendly catalyst production.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.355-360
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• 2002

ElectroSlag Strip Overlaying (ESSO) process has been around since 1970. ESSO process had limited acceptance due to a few problems associated with the use of this process in its very early stage. Limited knowledge and, most significantly, poor quality of the equipment and welding flux gave the ESSO process a bad name. However, this process is well accepted today and used in North America, Europe and Japan. The ESSO process provides low dilution overlays at high deposition rates, excellent and consistent deposit chemistry with excellent surface quality, and virtually no defects. Capitan has taken this process one step further through extensive research and development of the process itself as well as the equipment. The improvement brought to the process warranted the issuance in May 2000 of an US patent. This study demonstrates the feasibility of this process with immediate positive production results. The main achievements of this work are as follows: $\textbullet$ Development of six various strip-flux combinations on three different base materials: carbon steel, $\frac{1}{4}$ Cr/.5 Mo and 2 $\frac{1}{4}$ Cr/l Mo, fully tested with: penetrant, ultrasound, bends, hardness, overlay chemistry, corrosion and hydrogen disbonding. $\textbullet$ 12" dia. 90 hot formed elbows from straight pipe electroslag overlayed with "1 layer" and "2 layer" Alloy 625 $\textbullet$ a very unique development of miniaturized overlaying equipment able to perform overlay in pipe with diameters as low as 10" (254 mm). This development has large applications in the field of offshore, petrochemical, refining, pulp and paper and power generation industries. The aftermath of this development was its immediate acceptance by major end users with the completion of four projects of overlayed pipe in the USA and Far East Asia.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.36 no.9
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• pp.937-945
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• 1999

In an effort to protect a RBSC(reaction -bonded SiC) tube SiC films from methyltrichlorosilane(MTS) by low pressure chemical vapor deposition were deposited in hydrogen atmosphere on the RBSC(reaction-bonded SiC) substrates over a range of input gas ratio(${\alpha}=P_{H2}/P_{MTS}=Q_{H2}/Q_{MTS}$=1 to 10) and deposition temperatures(T=1050~1300$^{\circ}C$). At the temper-ature of 1250$^{\circ}C$ the growth rate of SiC films increased and then decreased with decreasing the input gas ratio. The microstructure of SiC films was changed from granular type structure exhibiting (111) preferred orientation in the high input gas ratios to faceted columnar grain structure showing (220) in the low input gas ratios. The similar microstructure change was obtained by increasing the deposition temperature. These results were closely related to a change of deposition mechanism. Double layer structure having granular type and faceted ciolumnar grain structure from the manipulation of mechanism. Double layer structure having granular type and faceted columnar grain structure from the manipulation of the input gas ratio without changing the deposition temperatue was successfully fabricated through in -site process.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.208-218
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• 2023

Photocatalysts are advanced materials which accelerate the photoreaction by providing ordinary reactions with other pathways. The catalysts have various advantages, such as low-cost, low operating temperature and pressure, and long-term use. They are applied to environmental and energy field, including the air and water purification, water splitting for hydrogen production, sterilization and self-cleaning surfaces. However, commercial photocatalysts only absorb ultraviolet light between 100 and 400 nm of wavelength which comprises only 5% in sunlight due to the wide band gap. In addition, rapid recombination of electron-hole pairs reduces the photocatalytic performance. Recently, studies on blackening photocatalysts by laser, thermal, and plasma treatments have been conducted to enhance the absorption of visible light and photocatalytic activity. The disordered structures could yield mid-gap states and vacancies could cause charge carrier trapping. Herein, liquid phase plasma (LPP) is adopted to synthesize Ag-doped black ZnO for the utilization of visible-light. The physical and chemical characteristics of the synthesized photocatalysts are analyzed by SEM/EDS, XRD, XPS and the optical properties of them are investigated using UV/Vis DRS and PL analyses. Lastly, the photocatalytic activity was evaluated using methylene blue as a pollutant.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.62 no.1
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• pp.36-43
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• 2024

Fishing net waste (FNW) constitutes over half of all marine plastic waste and is a major contributor to the degradation of marine ecosystems. While current treatment options for FNW include incineration, landfilling, and mechanical recycling, these methods often result in low-value products and pollutant emissions. Importantly, FNWs, comprised of plastic polymers, can be converted into valuable resources like syngas and pyrolysis oil through pyrolysis. Thus, this study presents a process for generating high-purity hydrogen (H₂) by catalytically pyrolyzing FNW in a CO₂ environment. The proposed process comprises of three stages: First, the pretreated FNW undergoes Ni/SiO₂ catalytic pyrolysis under CO₂ conditions to produce syngas and pyrolysis oil. Second, the produced pyrolysis oil is incinerated and repurposed as an energy source for the pyrolysis reaction. Lastly, the syngas is transformed into high-purity H₂ via the Water-Gas-Shift (WGS) reaction and Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA). This study compares the results of the proposed process with those of traditional pyrolysis conducted under N₂ conditions. Simulation results show that pyrolyzing 500 kg/h of FNW produced 2.933 kmol/h of high-purity H₂ under N₂ conditions and 3.605 kmol/h of high-purity H₂ under CO₂ conditions. Furthermore, pyrolysis under CO₂ conditions improved CO production, increasing H₂ output. Additionally, the CO₂ emissions were reduced by 89.8% compared to N₂ conditions due to the capture and utilization of CO₂ released during the process. Therefore, the proposed process under CO₂ conditions can efficiently recycle FNW and generate eco-friendly hydrogen product.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.312-318
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• 2011

We have investigated the kinetics and catalytic activity of $CO_2$-lignite gasification with various metal precursors as catalysts. $K_2CO_3$, $Mn(NO_3)_2$, and $Ce(NO_3)_3$ were used and impregnated on a coal using an evaporator. The gasification experiments were carried out with the low rank coal loaded with 5 wt% catalyst at the temperature range from $700{\sim}900^{\circ}C$ and atmospheric pressure with the $N_2-CO_2$ reactant gas mixture. The catalytic effect on the gasification rate of the low rank coal with $CO_2$ was determined by the thermogravimetric analyzer. It was observed that the low rank coal reached the complete carbon conversion regardless of the kinds of catalysts at $900^{\circ}C$ from the results of TGA. The catalytic activity was ranked as 5 wt% $K_2CO_3$ > 5 wt% $Mn(NO_3)_2$ > 5 wt% $Ce(NO_3)_3$ > Non-catalyst at $900^{\circ}C$. The gasification rate increased with increasing the temperature. The activation energy of the catalytic gasification with 5 wt% $K_2CO_3$ was 119.0 kJ/mol, which was the lowest among all catalysts.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.341-341
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• 2016

The discovery of light emission in nanostructured silicon has opened up new avenues of research in nano-silicon based devices. One such pathway is the application of silicon quantum dots in advanced photovoltaic and light emitting devices. Recently, there is increasing interest on the silicon quantum dots (c-Si QDs) films embedded in amorphous hydrogenated silicon-nitride dielectric matrix (a-SiNx: H), which are familiar as c-Si/a-SiNx:H QDs thin films. However, due to the limitation of the requirement of a very high deposition temperature along with post annealing and a low growth rate, extensive research are being undertaken to elevate these issues, for the point of view of applications, using plasma assisted deposition methods by using different plasma concepts. This work addresses about rapid growth and single step development of c-Si/a-SiNx:H QDs thin films deposited by RF (13.56 MHz) and ultra-high frequency (UHF ~ 320 MHz) low-pressure plasma processing of a mixture of silane (SiH4) and ammonia (NH3) gases diluted in hydrogen (H2) at a low growth temperature ($230^{\circ}C$). In the films the c-Si QDs of varying size, with an overall crystallinity of 60-80 %, are embedded in an a-SiNx: H matrix. The important result includes the formation of the tunable QD size of ~ 5-20 nm, having a thermodynamically favorable <220> crystallographic orientation, along with distinct signatures of the growth of ${\alpha}$-Si3N4 and ${\beta}$-Si3N4 components. Also, the roles of different plasma characteristics on the film properties are investigated using various plasma diagnostics and film analysis tools.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.435-441
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• 2014

Silicon carbide-based ceramics and their composites have been studied for application to fusion and advanced fission energy systems. For fission reactors, $SiC_f$/SiC composites can be applied to core structural materials. Multilayered SiC composite fuel cladding, owing to its superior high temperature strength and low hydrogen generation under severe accident conditions, is a candidate for the replacement of zirconium alloy cladding. The SiC composite cladding has to retain its mechanical properties and original structure under the inner pressure caused by fission products; as such it can be applied as a cladding in fission reactor. A hoop strength test using an expandable polyurethane plug was designed in order to evaluate the mechanical properties of the fuel cladding. In this paper, a hoop strength test of the multilayered SiC composite tube for nuclear fuel cladding was simulated using FEA. The stress caused by the plug was distributed nonuniformly because of the friction coefficient difference between the inner surface of the tube and the plug. Hoop stress and shear stress at the tube was evaluated and the relationship between the concentrated stress at the inner layer of the tube and the fracture behavior of the tube was investigated.