• Proceedings of the Korean Environmental Sciences Society Conference
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• 1998.10a
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• pp.2-4
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• 1998

Proliferation of Nocardia amarae cells in activated sludge has often been associated with the generation of nuisance foams. Despite intense research activities in recent years to examine the causes and control of Nocardia foaming in activated sludge, the foaming continued to persist throughout the activated sludge treatment plants in United States. In addition to causing various operational problems to treatment processes, the presence of Nocardia may have secondary effects on the fate of heavy metals that are not well known. For example, for treatment plants facing more stringent metal removal requirements, potential metal removal by Nocardia cells in foaming activated sludge would be a welcome secondary effect. In contrast, with new viosolid disposal regulations in place (Code o( Federal Regulation No. 503), higher concentration of metals in biosolids from foaming activated sludge could create management problems. The goal of this research was to investigate the metal sorption property of Nocardia amarae cells grown in batch reactors and in chemostat reactors. Specific surface area and metal sorption characteristics of N. amarae cells harvested at various growth stages were compared. Three metals examined in this study were copper, cadmium and nickel. Nocardia amarae strain (SRWTP isolate) used in this study was obtained from the University of California at Berkeley. The pure culture was grown in 4L batch reactor containing mineral salt medium with sodium acetate as the sole carbon source. In order to quantify the sorption of heavy metal ions to N amarae cell surfaces, cells from the batch reactor were harvested, washed, and suspended in 30mL centrifuge tubes. Metal sorption studies were conducted at pH 7.0 and ionlc strength of 10-2M. The sorption Isotherm showed that the cells harvested from the stationary and endogenous growth phase exhibited significantly higher metal sorption capacity than the cells from the exponential phase. The sequence of preferential uptake of metals by N. amarae cells was Cu>Cd>Ni. The specific surFace area of Nocardia cells was determined by a dye adsorption method. N.amarae cells growing at ewponential phase had significantly less specific surface area than that of stationary phase, indicating that the lower metal sorption capacity of Nocardia cells growing at exponential phase may be due to the lower specific surface area. The growth conditions of Nocardia cells in continuous culture affect their cell surface properties, thereby governing the adsorption capacity of heavy metal. The comparison of dye sorption isotherms for Nocardia cells growing at various growth rates revealed that the cell surface area increased with increasing sludge age, indicating that the cell surface area is highly dependent on the steady-state growth rate. The highest specific surface area of 199m21g was obtained from N.amarae cell harvested at 0.33 day-1 of growth rate. This result suggests that growth condition not only alters the structure of Nocardia cell wall but also affects the surface area, thus yielding more binding sites of metal removal. After reaching the steady-state condition at dilution rate, metal adsorption isotherms were used to determine the equilibrium distributions of metals between aqueous and Nocardia cell surfaces. The metal sorption capacity of Nocardia biomass harvested from 0.33 day-1 of growth rate was significantly higher than that of cells harvested from 0.5- and 1-day-1 operation, indicatng that N.amarae cells with a lower growth rate have higher sorpion capacity. This result was in close agreement with the trend observed from the batch study. To evaluate the effect of Nocardia cells on the metal binding capacity of activated sludge, specific surface area and metal sorption capacity of the mixture of Nocardia pure cultures and activated sludge biomass were determined by a series of batch experiments. The higher levels of Nocardia cells in the Nocardia-activated sludge samples resulted in the higher specific surface area, explaining the higher metal sorption sites by the mixed luquor samples containing greater amounts on Nocardia cells. The effect of Nocardia cells on the metal sorption capacity of activated sludge was evaluated by spiking an activated sludge sample with various amounts of pre culture Nocardia cells. The results of the Langmuir isotherm model fitted to the metal sorption by various mixtures of Nocardia and activated sludge indicated that the mixture containing higher Nocardia levels had higher metal adsorption capacity than the mixture containing lower Nocardia levels. At Nocardia levels above 100mg/g VSS, the metal sorption capacity of activate sludge increased proportionally with the amount of Noeardia cells present in the mixed liquor, indicating that the presence of Nocardia may increase the viosorption capacity of activated sludge.

• Clean Technology
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.137-144
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• 2020

Metal-impregnated activated carbons were prepared via ultrasonic-assisted impregnation method for regeneration and low ammonia concentration. Magnesium and copper were selected as metals, while chloride (Cl^-) and nitrate (NO₃^-) precursors were used to impregnate the surface of activated carbon. The physical and chemical properties of the prepared adsorbents were characterized by TGA, BET, and NH₃-TPD. The ammonia breakthrough test was carried out using a fixed bed and flowing ammonia gas (1000 mg L^-1 NH₃, balanced N₂) at 100 mL min^-1, under conditions of temperature swing adsorption (TSA) and pressure swing adsorption (PSA, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 0.9 Mpa). The adsorption and desorption performance of ammonia were in the order of AC-Mg(Cl) > AC-Cu(Cl) > AC-Mg(N) > AC-Cu(N) > AC through NH₃-TPD and TSA and PSA processes. AC-Mg(Cl) using MgCl₂ showed the average adsorption amount of 2.138 mmol/g at TSA process. Also, AC-Mg(Cl) showed the highest initial adsorption amount of 3.848 mmol/g at PSA 0.9 Mpa. When metal impregnated the surface of the activated carbon, it was confirmed that not only physical adsorption, but also chemical adsorption increased, making enhancement in adsorption and desorption performances possible. Also, the prepared adsorbents showed stable adsorption and desorption performances despite repeated processes, confirming their applicability in the TSA and PSA processes.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.370-374
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• 2013

The effects of zinc chloride addition on pore development of porous carbon nanofibers prepared by polyacrylonitrile (PAN)/ N,N'-dimethylformamide (DMF) (10 wt%) electrospinning were investigated. The change of morphological and structural modification by zinc chloride activation was investigated by a scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis. $N_2$ adsorption isotherm characteristics at 77 K were confirmed by Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) and Horvath-Kawazoe (H-K) equations, and the curves showed the Type I mode in the International Union of Pore and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) classification, indicating that lots of micropores exist in the sample. In addition, specific surface areas and total pore volumes of porous carbons prepared by the zinc chloride activation were determined as 600~980 $m^2/g$ and 0.24~0.40 $cm^3/g$, respectively. As experimental results, many holes or demolished structures were found on the fiber surfaces after the zinc chloride activation as confirmed by a SEM analysis. It was also observed that various pore sizes were found to be depended on the adding content of zinc chloride in PAN/DMF solution in this system.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.641-646
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• 2008

In this research, recovery of high quality organics from excess activated sludge and its potential as a external carbon sources for BNR process was studied. By simultaneous treatment of alkali and ozone, TSS concentration was reduced by 32%, and RBDCOD fraction was increased by 76.2%, and major constitute of produced organic were acetic acid and propionic acid. Also, nitrogen and phosphorus were greatly solubilized. However, because acid-hydrolyzable phosphorus(AHP) was major part of solubilized phosphorus, $NH_4{^+}-N$ and $PO_4{^3}-P$ concentration were insufficient for effective formation of crystal like as MAP(Magnesium Ammonium Phosphate) and hydroxyapatite. By placing BPR reactor before alkali-ozone treatment reactor, $PO_4{^3}-P$ concentration in pretreated sludge was increased by 1.8 times, and improved potential of phosphorus recovery by crystallization. In experiment of crystallization, hydroxyapatite formation was more easily applied than MAP. By hydroxyapatite formation, $SCOD/PO_4-P$ ratio was greatly increased from 32.7 at control to 141.9 at $Ca^{2+}/PO{_4}^{3-}-P$ mole ratio of 2.4. The results based on this study indicated that the proposed system configuration has potential to reduce the excess sludge production, to recover phosphorus in usable forms as well as utilize organics as a external carbon source in BNR process.

• Carbon letters
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.274-279
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• 2007

In order to understand the breakthrough behaviour of iodine vapours on impregnated carbon systems, an active carbon, 80 CTC grade, $12{\times}30$ BSS particle size and $1104\;m^2/g$ surface area, was impregnated with metal salts such Cu, Cr, Ag, Mo and Zn, and an organic compound Triethylene diamine (TEDA) to prepare different carbon systems such as whetlerite, whetlerite/TEDA, whetlerite/KI/KOH and ASZMT. The prepared adsorbents along with active carbon were characterized for surface area and pore volume by $N_2$ adsorption at liquid nitrogen temperature. These carbon systems were compared for their CT (concentration X time) values at 12.73 to 53.05 cm/sec space velocities and 2 to 5 cm carbon column bed heights. The carbon column of 5.0 cm bed height and 1.0 cm diameter was found to be providing protection against iodine vapours up to 5.5 h at 3.712 mg/L iodine vapour concentration and 12.73 cm/sec space velocity. The study clearly indicated the adsorption capacities of carbon systems to be directly proportional to their surface area values. Dead layer with all the prepared carbon systems was found to be less than 2.0 cm indicating it to be minimum bed height to have protection against $I_2$ vapours. Effect of carbon bed height and flow rate was also studied. The active carbon showed maximum protection at all bed heights and flow rates in comparison to all other impregnated carbon systems, showing that only physical adsorption is responsible for the removal of iodine vapours.

• Proceedings of the Korean Environmental Sciences Society Conference
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• 2002.05b
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• pp.452-454
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• 2002

A biosurfactant-producing microorganism, .Pseudomouos sp. EL-G527 was isolated from activated sludge by enrichment culture when grown on mineral salt medium containing n-hexadecane as a carbon source. The biosurfactant from .Pseudomonar sp. EL-G527 exhibited lesser toxicity to bacterial population than synthetic surfactants and in the biodegradation test, biosurfactant was rapidly degraded and lost its activity as surface active material after 1 day incubation. In this study, the biosurfactant from Pseudomonas sp. EL-G527 was effective surface-active compound, more biodegradable and less toxic to microbial ecosystem than various synthetic surfactants.

• Journal of environmental and Sanitary engineering
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.111-119
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• 1997

We met the continued population growth, contamination of both surface and groundwaters, deficiency of water resources, and increase of water demand. Wastewater reclamation and reusing system are important facilities in water resources planning aspect. The required water quality for reclamed wastewater varies with each application. This study was conducted to examine the possibilities of the wastewater reclamation and reusing on milk manufacturing wastewater. Biofiltration could reduce the COD$_{Cr}$, NH$_{3}$-N. Turbidty was reduced highly by coagulation. In conclusion, we identified the possibilities of wastewater reclamation and reusing on milk manufacturing wastewater's by biological activated carbon filter.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.184-189
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• 2013

In the present study, batch experiments were carried out for the utilizatioin of activated carbon as a potential adsorbent to remove a hazardous malachite green from an aqueous solution. The effects of various parameters such as temperature, contact time, initial concentration on the adsorption system were investigated. On the basis of adsorption data Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption isotherm model were also confirmed. The equilibrium process was described well by Langmuir isotherm model. From determined separation factor, the activated carbon could be employed as an effective treatment for removal of malachite green. From kinetic experiments, the adsorption process followed the pseudo second order model, and the adsorption rate constant ($k_2$) decreased with increasing both the initial concentration of malachite green and the adsoprtion temperature. Thermodynamic parameters like that activation energy, change of free energy, enthalpy, and entropy were also calculated to predict the adsorption nature. The activation energy calculated from Arrhenius equation indicated that the adsortpion of malachite green on the zeolite was physical process. The negative Gibbs free energy change ($\Delta$G = -3.68~-7.76 kJ/mol) and the positive enthalpy change ($\Delta$H = +26.34 kJ/mol) indicated the spontaneous and endothermic nature of the adsorption in the temperature range of 298~318 K.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.10 no.1 s.20
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• pp.69-73
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• 2004

Control if Sediment is very important in prawn farm due to the eruption of toxic materials such as unionized $H_{2}S,\;NH_{3}\;and\;NO_3$. In this study, column test was conducted with filter media such as activated carbon, zeolite, oyster shell and iron chloride to evaluate the reduction of toxicity from sediment. ammonia-N($NH_3$) was effectively removed by Zeolite and oyster shell. It was indicated that ammonium ion($NH_4^+$) was removed by ion exchange of zeolite. And the ammonia in the column of oyster shell was existed as the form of $NH_4^+$, which is not toxic for prawn because oyster shell was stably kept at $8{\sim}9g$ of pH. Therefore, some of ammonia($NH_4^+$) was removed by oyster shell. Hydrogen sulfide and COD were effectively removed by adsorption of activated carbon and a partial removal of hydrogen sulfide was accomplished by Oyster shell. Phosphorous was removed by activated carbon, oyster shell and iron chloride. In prawn farm, the concentration of ammonia was increased with increase of pH by algae photosynthesis in the column of activated carbon, zeolite and iron chloride, but it was revealed that pH was stably kept in the column of oyster shell.

• Environmental Sciences Bulletin of The Korean Environmental Sciences Society
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.11-17
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• 1997

The treatment performances of anaerobic-aerobic activated sludge process were investigated under various operation conditions. The treatment system proposed in this study gave a relatively stable performance against hourly change of the flow rate and showed a satisfactory removal efficiency of nitrogen and phosphorus compounds under experimental conditions. The average removal efficiency of total nitrogen gradually decreased as the influent total nitrogen concentration was increased. High C/N ratio of the wastewater was required for the complete removal of nitrogen. Glucose as a carbon source was more efficient than starch and the removal ability for all components become higher with the increase of the fraction of glucose.