• Land and Housing Review
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.167-177
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• 2024

This study aimed to assess the efficacy of an adsorption process in removing organic matter and micropollutant residuals. After a full-scale water circulation system, the adsorption process was considered a post-treatment step. The system, treating anthropogenically impacted surface waters, comprises a hydro-cyclone, coagulation, flocculation, and dissolved air flotation unit. While the system generally maintained stable and satisfactory effluent quality standards over months, it did not meet the highest standard for organic matter (as determined by chemical oxygen demands). Adsorption experiments utilized two granular activated carbon types, GAC 830 and GCN 830, derived from coal and coconut-shell feedstocks, respectively. The assessment encompassed organic materials along with two notable micropollutants: acetaminophen (APAP) and acid orange 7 (AO7). Adsorption kinetics and isotherm experiments were conducted to determine adsorption rates and maximum adsorption amounts. The quantitative findings derived from pseudo-second-order kinetics and Langmuir isotherm models suggest the effectiveness of the adsorption process. The findings of this study propose the potential of employing the adsorption process as a post-treatment to enhance the treatment of contaminants that are not satisfactorily treated by conventional water circulation systems. This enhancement is crucial for ensuring the sustainability of urban water cycles.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.91-102
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• 2009

In this study, to estimate the transforming (runoff and leachate) rate of the organic fertilizer made of livestock resources to farm land, laboratory scale test was conducted and the results were obtained as follows: The runoff volume from farm land showed the tendency of increase according to the increase of rainfall intensity. The most rainfall leachated into the underground at the rainfall intensity of 20mm/hr, and rainfall of 5L or less leachated at the rainfall intensity of > 32.4 mm/hr. This shows that surface runoff largely depends on the rainfall intensity when soil characteristic and hardness are similar in each site. When liquid compost was fertilized, the surface runoff was similar with the results from the reactor fertilized by compost, and leachate flow was found to be lower than compost. The runoff ratio of contaminant parameters from farm land were BOD 0.00003,, $COD_{cr}$ 0.00006, TN 0.00056, TP 0.00011, TOC 0.00005, Especially, the runoff ratio of TN showed 10 folds higher than other parameters. On the other hand, the runoff ratio of SS showed higher value of 0.001, and colloid particles of soil caused this result rather than the leachate from compost fertilizer. At all ranges of rainfall intensity, fertilizer removal ratio by farm land was found to be 94.9~98.4% for compost and 85.8~98.1% for liquid compost in terms of BOD. For TN, it resulted in 96.6~98.4% for compost and 97.2~98.5% for liquid compost, and thus the most fertilizer from livestock resources were shown to be reduced through farm land application.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Groundwater Environment
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.122-129
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• 1997

Spills or leaks of hazardous organic. compounds from underground storage tanks (USTs) are common contaminant sources of soil and groundwater. It would aid in managing USTs to assess and rank the potential environmental hazard posed by the USTs. Therefore, a preliminary hazard ranking system of USTs is developed in this study. The system is combined with GIS and consists of five steps: 1) selection of significant factors, 2) determination of the hierarchy of the factors. 3) determination of the weights, 4) calculation of the potential hazard, and 5) hazard assessment. The system is applied to the gas stations in Kwanak-gu, Seoul. The results indicate that the gas stations can be categorized in three groups as highly hazardous, less highly hazardous, and weakly hazardous. Seven gas stations belong to the highly hazardous group. Through the sensitivity analysis, four stations appear to possess high hazard potentials regardless of weights assigned to the factors. It appears that a user can make flexible application of the hazard ranking system with the user's experience and particular purposes. However, the system still needs validations against field survey data.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.41 no.11
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• pp.318-327
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• 2017

Background: A typical sewage treatment plant is designed for organic and nutrient removal from municipal sewage water and not targeted to eliminate micropollutants such as pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and nano-sized metals which become a big concern for sustainable human and ecological system and are mainly discharged from sewage treatment plant. Therefore, despite contaminant removal by wastewater treatment processes, there are still remaining environmental risks by untreated pollutants in STP (sewage treatment plant) effluents. This study performed aquatic toxicity tests of raw wastewater and treated effluents in two sewage treatment plants to evaluate toxicity reduction by wastewater treatment process and analyze concentration of contaminants to reveal potential toxic factors in STP effluents. Methods: Water samples were collected from each treatment steps of two STPs, and acute and chronic toxicity tests were conducted following USEPA (United States Environmental Protection Agency) and OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) guidelines. Endpoints were immobility for mortality and reproduction effect for estrogenicity. Results: Acute $EC_{50}s$ (median effective concentration) of influents for Seungki (SK) and Jungnang (JN) STPs are $54.13{\pm}32.64%$ and $30.38{\pm}24.96%$, respectively, and reduced to $96.49{\pm}7.84%$ and 100%. Acute toxicity reduction was clearly correlated with SS (suspended solids) concentration because of filter feeding characteristics of test organisms. Chronic toxicity tests revealed that lethal effect was reduced and low concentration of influents showed higher number of neonates. However, toxicity reduction was not related to nutrient removal. Fecundity effect positively increased in treated wastewater compared to that in raw wastewater, and no significant differences were observed compared to the control group in JN final effluent implying potential effects of estrogenic compounds in the STP effluents. Conclusions: Conventional wastewater treatment process reduced some organics and nutritional compounds from wastewater, and it results in toxicity reduction in lethal effect and positive reproductive effect but not showing correlation. Unknown estrogenic compounds could be a reason causing the increase of brood size. This study suggests that pharmaceutical residues and nanoparticles in STP effluents are one of the major micropollutants and underline as one of estrogenic effect factors.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Groundwater Environment
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.95-100
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• 1996

Schlumberger electrical soundings and Coincident loop time-domain electromagnetic soundings were made on the Nanji-do landfill to investigate the nature of fills and the subsurface structure. The measured data were transformed into apparent resistivity values and then inverted in terms of 1-D resistivity models. At 6 points, both measurements were carried out to check the validity of the interpreted subsurface electrical structures. Interpreted layered models from each method show a good agreement. Obtained models show that a conductive zone exist below the shallow resistive zone. Conductive zone, which is considered to be influenced by decomposition of organic waste materials and infiltration of precipitation, is terminated by resistive zone which is considered as basement. Considering the fact that conductive zone extends to the basement and there exist no barrier layers such as clay layers, contaminant plumes are likely to flow into the groundwater directly.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.39 no.10
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• pp.575-580
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• 2017

Chlorinated hydrocarbons (TCE and PCE), petroleum hydrocarbons (BTEX, PAHs, and TPH), and explosive compounds (TNT, RDX, and HMX) have been detected in underground water countrywide. The overall objective of this study is to evaluate sono-catalytic degradation coupled with the use of PUV in order to understand the fate and transport of a representative selection of non-biodegradable contaminants (i.e., TCE, PCE, BTEX, PAHs, TPH, TNT, RDX, and HMX) in groundwater. Both ultraviolet (UV) and ultrasound (US) systems are used in degrading of organic contaminants and they can thus be applicable simultaneously as an UV/US hybrid system in attempts further to increase the degradation efficiency. Results indicate that synergistic effect of UV/US hybrid system is closely correlated to the enhancement of sono-chemical reactivity with the UV-US interaction of increasing the formation rate of OH by providing additional $H_2O_2$ production through the pyrolysis of water molecules during UV/US hybrid irradiation.

• Journal of Korea Soil Environment Society
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.69-73
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• 1999

The study was performed to examine the elimination capacity of impurity on the fiberglass wicks to exert a suction of Passive capillary samplers (PCAPS) on soil water. This impurity affects the capillary properties of the wick and the chemical properties of the samples collected. To determine the need, capillary rise and moisture contents were measured after the wicks were cleaned by four methods : combustion, acetone extraction, detergent washing, and uncleaning. The wicks were made with fibers produced by PPG Industries and Manville Company, U.S.A. Results showed that wicks made from PPG fibers lost up to 3.4% of original mass during combustion while Manville fiber wicks lost only up to 0.6%. These losses are assumed to have been due to combustion of organic compounds applied by the manufacturers. All cleaning methods had higher capillary rise than obtained with uncleaning method Combustion at 40$0^{\circ}C$ for 4 hours was the best cleaning method. removing 98 to 100% of impurities.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.869-883
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• 2019

China is currently facing great challenges in protecting its arable soil from contamination by heavy metals, especially Cd in paddy soil. China enacted the first soil environmental quality standards (SEQS) for ten pollutants in 1995, and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment released the results of the first nationwide soil survey in 2014. The soil survey showed that as much as 16% of China's soil and 19% of the agricultural soils were contaminated mainly with heavy metals and metalloids beyond the environmental quality limits. The exceeded rate of the contaminant limits in food crops was widespread in China, and the most severe regions were East and Southwest China. Heavy metals and metalloids accounted for 82.4% of the contaminants in soils while organic pollutants accounted for 17% of the contaminants in the soil. Among the heavy metals and metalloids exceeding the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) limit, cadmium (Cd) was highest at 7.0%, followed by nickel (4.8%), arsenic (2.7%), cobalt (2.1%), mercury (1.6%) and lead (1.5%). However, all the average concentrations of the pollutants were lower than the recommended values for the contaminants except for Cd for three levels of pH (< 6.5, 6.5 - 7.5, and > 7.5). According to the Action Plan on Prevention and Control of Soil Pollution released by the State Council in 2016, 90% of contaminated farmland will be made safe by 2020 with an increase to 95% by 2030. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the soil quality to meet the environmental quality standard for soils and heavy metal standards for food safety.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.63-69
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• 2010

This study was conducted to compare the concentration of various air contaminants in nine different laboratories during routine activities. Volatile organic compounds (VOC) were sampled and analyzed using NIOSH Method 1500 and asbestos fibers were sampled and analyzed using NIOSH Method 9002 and 7400. Detectable levels of acetone, toluene and ethanol were found in all the laboratories and xylene and n-hexane were detected in eight of the nine laboratories. All the VOC concentrations were well below the Korean Ministry of Labor's Exposure Limit and American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists' (ACGIH) Threshold Limit Values (TLVs). Total VOC concentrations at the university laboratories were significantly higher than those at governmental agency laboratories. Airborne fiber concentrations were below 0.01 fibers/cc, while the concentration of chrysotile was 2% in insulation materials sprayed on the ceiling of one laboratory. While all the governmental agency laboratories (n=4) had fume hoods, two out of the five university laboratories did not have fume hoods. The capture velocity of half of the fume hoods were below the maintenance standard(0.4 m/sec). In conclusion, the study suggests that the current controls in place at both university and government agency laboratories are not sufficient in limiting exposure to harmful chemicals to non-detectable levels, though they appear to be adequate in protecting workers to levels below applicable occupational exposure limits. The study also suggests that researchers working in university laboratories may be exposed to greater levels of contaminant than those working in government agency laboratories.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.9-18
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• 2007

Soil vapor extraction (SVE) is an effective and cost efficient method of removing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and petroleum hydrocarbons from unsaturated soils. However, soil vapor extraction becomes ineffective in soils with low gas permeability, for example soils with air permeabilities less than 1 Darcy. Incorporating PVDs in an SVE system can extend the effectiveness of SVE to lower permeability soils by shortening the air flow-paths and ultimately expediting contaminant removal. The objective of the research described herein was to effectively incorporate PVDs into a SVE remediation system. The test results show that the gas permeability was evaluated for four different equivalent diameters, increasing the equivalent diameter results in a decrease in the calculated gas permeability. It was found that the porosity for the dry condition was greater than that of the wet condition and will allow flow rate for the same vacuum flow, offering a low resistance to the air flow.