• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.99-106
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• 2024

This study developed an efficient management plan to improve the water quality by analyzing fluctuations in the ratio and amount of various organic substances in streams considering watershed characteristics and rainfall patterns. Monitoring was conducted on three streams and one lake over seven sessions during wet and dry seasons. Water quality indicators including total organic (TOC), refractory dissolved organic (RDOC), and particulate organic (POC) carbons were analyzed using high-temperature combustion oxidation. The three streams (Cheongmi, Yanghwa, and Bokha) displayed high TOC concentrations during the rainy season because the accumulated organic substances from the dry season were washed away by rainfall. By contrast, Paldang Lake exhibited a substantial decrease in TOC concentration due to dilution, which was influenced by watershed and rainfall characteristics. Across all streams and lakes, dissolved organic carbon (DOC) accounted for the highest proportion, at 77.5% of TOC, with RDOC making up 91% of DOC and 71% of TOC. Although POC contributed a small annual proportion to annual TOC, the concentration rapidly increased during late spring and early summer, with increases of 40.403%, 25.99%, and 27.388% in Cheongmi, Yanghwa, and Bokha, respectively. Continuous monitoring of RDOC is essential to identify seasonal fluctuations and changes due to rainfall events. Furthermore, intensive POC management during the rainy season, particularly in May and June, is potentially economical and efficient for water quality management.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.79-85
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• 2006

Innovated technique to oxidize pollutants has been developed. The technique for this study uses plasma discharge in 2-phase (Air-Water) and is called Discharged Water Generating (DWG) system. It produces electric arc which generates not only the physical decomposing power against the pollutants but also oxidants to sterilize pollutants depending on the inlet gas species. These physical and chemical products play an important role in COD decrease and biodegradability enhancement. The enhancement of biodegradability for the refractory organic substances in aqueous solution was estimated in this study. Argon discharge reduced NBDCOD of EDTA from 58.7mg/L to 38.8mg/L, but oxygen discharge and ozonation reduced it to 37.74mg/L and 38.73mg/L respectively. Furthermore, Argon discharge changed 1181mg/L of NBDCOD of dye effluent into 606mg/L but oxygen discharge and ozonation changed it into 888mg/L and 790mg/L respectively.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.125-131
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• 2005

Natural organic matter(NOM) is defined as the complex matrix of organic material and abundant in natural waters. It affects the performance of unit operations for water purification. Several kinds of analytical indicators such as DOC, specific ultraviolet absorbance(SUVA), apparent molecular weight (AMW), fractionation and high performance size exclusive chromatography(HPSEC) have been used to understand characteristics and variations of NOM. This study aims to evaluate the characteristics of NOM in the Geum River system comprising with stream flows and reservoirs. It was identified that SUVA denoting the portion of humic substance in water ranged within 1.60~3.36. Using resin adsorbents, dissolved organic carbon(DOC) was fractionated into three classes: hydrophobic bases(HOB), hydrophobic acids(HOA) and hydrophilic substances(HI). HI dominates in all samples, collectively accounting for more than 62% of the DOC. HOA was the second dominated fraction and it varied considerably but accounted for about 30% of the DOC. The distribution of high molecular weight(HMW) measured by HPSEC being used to determine the molecular weight distribution of aquatic humic substances was 40.1% and 38.7% in reservoir and stream flow, respectively. The distribution of low molecular weight(LMW) in stream flow was 13.2% higher than that in reservoir. And apparent molecular weight less than 1KDa, which include the molecular weight of hydrophilic organic matter, occupied with 69.2% and 68.2% in stream flow and reservoir, respectively. While the molecular weight of 1 to 100 KDa including humic substances ranged with 18.6% and 21.6% in stream flow and reservoir, respectively. Seasonal variation of refractory dissolved organic carbon was similar to that of SUVA.

• Proceedings of the Korean Environmental Health Society Conference
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• 2003.06a
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• pp.123-127
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• 2003

This experiment was performed to investigate the characteristics of sonolytic reaction as the basic data for development of the ultrasonic AOP(Advanced Oxidation Process) process from which the refractory organic compounds in aqueous solution which are not readily removed by the existing conventional wastewater treatment processes can be destructed and removed. Trichloroethylene (TCE), benzene, and 2,4-dichlorophenol(DCP) were used as the samples, and their destruction efficiency were measured in terms of experimental parameters of the initial solution concentration, initial solution pH, reaction temperature, acoustic frequencies and intensities. Results showed that the destruction efficiencies of all of the sample materials were above 80% within 120 minutes of sonolytic reaction in all reaction condition. The reaction order of these three compounds was verified as Pseudo first order. From the fore-mentioned results, it can be concluded that the refractory organic compounds could be removed by the ultrasonic irradiation with radicals, such as H$.$and OH$.$causing the high increase of pressure and temperature. Finally, it appears that the new AOP technology using ultrasonic irradiation can be applied to the treatment of refractory substances which are difficult to be decomposed by the conventional methods.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.113-123
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• 2023

Humic substances are refractory organic compounds that are relatively low in biological activity but known to stimulate phytoplankton growth in estuarine and marine environments. The effect of humic substances on phytoplankton growth was investigated in the seawater zone of the Yeongsan River estuary where an episodic anthropogenic freshwater is discharged, affecting its water properties directly. Water samples and data of water properties were collected at three stations (Sts. A-C) along the channel of the seawater zone in February, May, August and November, 2009. The collected water samples were incubated after humic acids (HA) were added in mesocosm experiments. Phytoplankton (chlorophyll-a) were fractionated into net- (> 20 ㎛) and nano-size (< 20 ㎛) to examine the response of phytoplankton according to size. Their response to HA treatment was assessed by repeated measures analysis of variance (RM-ANOVA). The experiments showed that phytoplankton biomass (chlorophyll-a) significantly increased after HA were added at the stations near the sea dike. Especially, nano-sized chlorophyll-a concentrations increased significantly throughout the seasons. This indicates that understanding the behavior of refractory organic matters such as humic substances is required to better manage altered estuarine ecosystems including the Yeongsan River estuary which are affected by episodic discharge of freshwater from sea dikes.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.697-703
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• 2009

In this study, changes in the composition of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) were investigated using water samples collected at a downstream site of the Namhan River near the Lake Paldang ($N37^{\circ}24^{\prime}05.33^{{\prime}{\prime}}E127^{\circ}32^{\prime}25.01^{{\prime}{\prime}}$) during a heavy rain event from July 23 to July 28, 2008. The DOC concentrations varied from 1.68 to 3.18 mg/L with the maxium value at a peak of the river water level. Each DOC sample was fractionated into three compositions including hydrophilic (Hi), hydrophobic acid (HoA) and hydrophobic neutral (HoN) fractions. The results showed that HoA was most abundant fractions, constituting 47.2~56.5% of DOC. Refractory dissolved organic carbon (R-DOC) contents were also determined by measuring the DOC concentration after 28-day dark incubation of the samples. R-DOC content was in the range from 83 to 99% of DOC and it was significantly correlated with HoA contents (r = 0.91, p<0.005), while it did not exhibit such a good correlation with the fractions of Hi and HoN (p>0.02). Our results suggest that the HoA, which is associated with humic substances, may be a major composition of refractory organic matters in rivers during storm events.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.419-424
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• 2009

Characteristics of humic substances on the changes in dissolved organic matter (DOM) characteristics by biodegradation was investigated using three types of the artificial water samples composed of glucose and Suwannee River fulvic acid (SRFA). Some selected DOM characteristics including the specific UV absorbance (SUVA), the synchronous fluorescence spectra and the molecular weight (MW) were compared for the artificial water samples before and after 28-day microbial incubation. The changes of the DOM characteristics were minimal for SRFA during the incubation whereas they were significant for glucose. SUVA, dissolved organic carbon (DOC)-normalized fluorescence intensity, and MW values of glucose increased, suggesting that such labile organic compounds could be exclusively transformed into more humidified materials by biodegradation. For glucose-SRFA mixture, the selected DOM characteristics were greater than those estimated using the assumption that the individual changes of either glucose or SRFA are conservative for the mixture of the two materials. Our results suggest that the presence of humic substances (HS) may lead to the enhancement of the formation of refractory organic materials during biodegradation of labile compounds. Detailed analyses of size exclusion chromatography (SEC) revealed that the enhancement occurred for the DOM mixture with a MW range between 500 Da to 4000 Da.

• Journal of environmental and Sanitary engineering
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.54-62
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• 1999

2,4-Dichlorophenol was known pollutants caused by the endocrine disruptor into the refractory substances of environment and this is difficult to be degradable by conventional methods. Therefore, a considerable interest has been devoted to developing new process where 2,4-Dichlorophenol can easily decomposed. In this study, the series of ultrasonic irradiation for removal of 2,4-Dichlorophenol has been selected as a model reaction in the batch reactor system in order to obtain the basic data investigate the influence of various experimental parameters such as concentration, pH, reaction temperature, acoustic intensity. The products obtained form the ultrasonic irradiation were analysed by GC/MS and HPLC. The formation of $H_2O_2$, a well-known the strong oxidant was found proportionally to increase with irradiation time. The intermediates of ultrasonic irradiation of 2,4-Dichlorophenol were identified as HCl, catechol, hydroquinone, o,p-benzoquinone, muconic acid, and maleic acid. The final products of this was $CO_2$ and $H_2O$. As the decomposition of 2,4-Dichlorophenol proceeds by the ultrasonic irradiation, the pH of 2,4-Dichlorophenol containing aqueous solution increases slowly, The decomposition of 2,4-Dichlorophenol was found to be occured fast in the basic medium. In general, the rate of reaction is proportional to the reaction temperature obeying the Arrhenius' law. However, in the ultrasonic irradiation, this suggests as the reaction temperature increase the decomposition rate of the reactant decreases. This result meant that the increase of reaction temperature due to the increase of vapor pressure of water accelerated the decrease of acoustic intensity which was can be proportional to the decomposition rae of these compounds. It was found that more than 80% of phenol solution was removed within hours in all reaction conditions. The reaction order in the degradation of the 2,4-Dichlorophenol compounds was verified as the Pseude-first order. From the fore-mentioned results, it can be concluded that the refractory organic compounds caused by endocrine disruptor as 2,4-dichlorophenol could be removed by the ultrasonic irradiation with radicals, such as $H{\;}{\cdot}{\;}and{\;}OH{\;}{\cdot}$ radical causing the high increase of pressure and temperature. Finally, it apeared that the technology using ultrasonic irradiation can be applied to the treatment of refractory substances caused by endocrine disruptor which are difficult to be decomposed by the conventional methods.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.399-408
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• 2018

This research investigated the effects of weir (Ipobo) construction on the dynamics and the related spatial distributions of pollutants inflowing from tributaries (Yanghwacheon and Bokhacheon). Conductivity measurements and water sampling were conducted longitudinally, horizontally, and vertically in the waterbody upstream of the area located in Ipobo. Additionally, collected water samples were used for the dissolved organic carbon (DOC) analysis and fluorescence analysis which results in the SUVA, HIX, BIX, and FI calculation and parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC). Consequently, the results of the Conductivity, DOC, SUVA, and HIX showed that high concentration of pollutants that were flowing from the area of Bokhacheon which was mixed along the flow of the main river. The results of the BIX and FI did not show significant difference along the river flow which represented that allochthonous and terrestrial DOM, and for this reason was dominated in the whole waterbody rather than just the autochthonous DOM. The PARAFAC results showed that the two fluorescence components, humic-like and protein-like, constituted the fluorescence matrices of the water samples. The prevailing discipline notes that the two components were inflowing from the tributaries, however, a refractory component, humic-like substances, was relatively accumulated near the weir. From the results, the dynamics and spatial distributions of the DOM are dependent on the DOM characteristics, which induces the application of a specialized DOM analysis method to investigate the effects of a subsequent weir construction on the dynamics and spatial distributions of pollutants inflowing from the tributaries.

• Clean Technology
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.293-300
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• 2018

Sulfamethoxazole (SMX) is sulfaamide-based synthetic antibiotics, which are widely prescribed pharmaceutical compound to treat bacterial infections in both human and animals. Most of them are not completely decomposed as refractory substances. The environmental impact of pharmaceuticals as emerging contaminants has generated severe concerns. In this study, catalytic wet peroxide oxidation (CWPO) of SMX was carried out with $Cu/Al_2O_3$ catalyst and investigated the optimum reaction conditions of temperature, dosage of catalyst and concentration of $H_2O_2$ to completely decompose the SMX. It was observed that SMX was completely decomposed within 20 min using 0.79 mM $H_2O_2$ and 6 g $Cu/Al_2O_3$ catalyst at 1 atm and $40^{\circ}C$, but SMX was not fully mineralized and converted to intermediates as hydroylated-SMX, sulfanilic acid, 4-aminobenzenesulfinic acid and nitrobenzene. After that these are completely mineralized through organic acid. We proposed the decomposition reaction path ways of SMX by analyzing the behavior of these intermediates. To investigate the durability of heterogeneous catalyst, decomposition of SMX was observed by continuously recycling catalysts. When the heterogeneous catalyst of 10 wt% $Cu/Al_2O_3$ was continuously reused 5 times, decomposition of SMX was a little lowered, but the activity of catalyst was overall very stable.