To elucidate the effect of feeding differently prepared CaCO3 (industrially purified limestone) on laying performance, egg shell quality and serum calcium and phosphorus concentration, totally 288 layers (52 wks old), with 16 birds per replicate, 3 replicates per treatment for six treatments were employed into the series of CaCO3 treatments followed by feeding study. Six CaCO3 treatment and diet preparation includes mash diet with naturally sized CaCO3 (MNaC), mash diet with coarsely particled CaCO3 (MCoC), mash diet with finely particled CaCO3 (MFiC), pelleted diet with naturally sized CaCO3 (PNaC), pelleted diet with casein coated CaCO3 (PCnC) and pelleted diet with agar coated CaCO3 (PAgC). Hen day egg production of the bird fed both fine CaCO3 and pelleted CaCO3 were lower (p<0.05) than those fed other CaCO3 diets. Although there is no difference in average egg weight among treatments, the weight tended to be heavier once the egg production rate was low. There is no difference in feed conversion ratio (intake/egg) among treatments. Egg shell thickness was the highest (p<0.05) with feeding of MCoC whereas the value was the lowest with feeding of pelleted CaCO3 diet. Although there is some difference in egg shell thickness, the shell breaking forces were not significantly different among treatments. Calcium content of the shell was the lowest (p<0.05) in the egg from the layer fed finely particled CaCO3. Serum Ca content tended to decrease up to 8 hrs after feeding, then tended to increase afterwards. Although both agar and casein coating of CaCO3 tended to retard the recovering increase of blood Ca, the difference needed to be clarified with individual ovulation cycle. Serum P level was generally decreased as time passed after feeding. Crude protein utilizability was the highest with feeding of agar coated CaCO3 and that of fat was higher with hens fed pelleted diets. Both ash and P utilizabilities of diet with finely particled CaCO3 were the highest among treatment although there were no differences in both energy and Ca utilizabilities. Conclusively, both the particle size of CaCO3 and pelleting of CaCO3 diet could affect shell quality of the egg. The effect was more evident by the differentiation of CaCO3 particle size than any other processing such as pelleting and coating.

Hybridization system, Spraying chamber coating system and aerothermal fluidization spraying (ATFS) system, were tested to find an economic and practical method for vitamin coating. Ae coating by hybridization was done by commercial hybridizer. But both spraying chamber and aerothermal fluidization spraying system were developed by authors for this test. Two vitamins, Vit. E and Vit. C, were employed for coating with four different coating materials, such as eudragit, corn zein, ethylcellulose and gelatin. Coating by hybridization was unsuccessful due to high intake velocity, temperature increase, and bridge formation between vitamin particles. Spraying chamber system was marginally successful to coat vitamins. But the quality of coated vitamin was poor possibly because of the failure of uniform mixing between vitamin and coating materials inside the chamber. Vitamin coating was successfully achieved by ATFS system. The system enables to give not only uniform mixing between coating material and vitamin, but also drying of coated vitamin and uniform diffusion of vitamin particles by thermal aeration. This result was also confirmed through surface micrograph by scanning electron microscope. Therfore, the ATFS system can be considered as a practical system for coating sensitive materials such as vitamins as well as other feed additives.

In view of recycle or treatment of swine manure, the physico-chemical characteristic including the thermal reaction curve by DSC were evaluated. After extrusion processing of swine manure, durability of the pellet and the degree of odor reduction by olfactory detection were also evaluated. Fresh swine manure solids contains more than half of 106㎛ or smaller particles, that could cause a difficulty in physical separation. Totally, 80.34% of solids were volatile solids. As the urea level is increased, the gelatinization temperature of the manure added feed mixture is decreased although the specific energy for gelatinization is increased. The level of fiber and ash did not affect the thermal modification pattern. A durability of extruded and pelleted swine manure-incorporated feed depend primarily upon processing moisture content then secondarily upon both processing temperature and addition level of swine manure. Olfactory odor intensity of swine manure decreased with extrusion of the swine manure although the post processing emission intensity of NH3, SO2, and H2S were not changed due to the processing.

This study evaluated the biochemical methane potential (BMP) of primary sludge, secondary sludge, and food waste in batch anaerobic mono-digestion tests, and investigated the effects of mixture ratio of those organic wastes on methane yield and production rate in batch anaerobic co-digestion tests, that were designed based on a simplex mixture design method. The BMP of primary sludge, secondary sludge and food waste were determined as 234.2, 172.7, and 379.1 mL CH4/g COD, respectively. The relationships between the mixing ratio of those organic wastes with methane yield and methane production rate were successfully expressed in special cubic models. Both methane yield and methane production rate were estimated as higher when the mixture ratio of food waste was higher. At a mixing ratio of 0.5 and 0.5 for primary sludge and food waste, the methane yield of 297.9 mL CH4/g COD was expected; this was 19.4% higher than that obtained at a mixing ratio of 0.3333, 0.3333 and 0.3333 for primary sludge, secondary sludge, and food waste (249.5 mL CH4/g COD). These findings could be useful when designing field-scale anaerobic digersters for mono- and co-digestion of sewage sludges and food waste.

This study investigated microbial communities and their diversity in a full-scale mesophilic anaerobic digester treating sewage sludge. Influent sewage sludge and anaerobic digester samples collected from a wastewater treatment plant in Busan were analyzed using high-throughput sequencing. It was found that the microbial community structure and diversity in the anaerobic digester could be affected by inoculation effect with influent sewage sludge. Nevertheless, distinct microbial communities were identified as the dominant microbial communities in the anaerobic digester. Twelve genera were identified as abundant bacterial communities, which included several groups of syntrophic bacteria communities, such as Candidatus Cloacimonas, Cloacimonadaceae W5, Smithella, which are (potential) syntrophic-propionate-oxidizing bacteria and Mesotoga and Thermovigra, which are (potential) syntrophic-acetate-oxidizing bacteria. Lentimicrobium, the most abundant genus in the anaerobic digester, may contribute to the decomposition of carbohydrates and the production of volatile fatty acids during the anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge. Of the methanogens identified, Methanollinea, Candidatus Methanofastidiosum, Methanospirillum, and Methanoculleus were the dominant hydrogenotrophic methanogens, and Methanosaeta was the dominant aceticlastic methanogens. The findings may be used as a reference for developing microbial indicators to evaluate the process stability and process efficiency of the anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge.

In this study, the effect of different reaction times for thermal-alkaline pretreatment on the solubilization and biogasification of polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) were evaluated. Thermal-alkaline pretreatment tests were performed at 73 °C and pH 13 at 0-120 h reaction times. The mesophilic anaerobic batch tests were performed with untreated and pretreated PHB samples. The increase in the pretreatment reaction time results in a 52.8-98.8% increase of the abiotic solubilization efficiency of the PHB samples. The reaction time required to achieve solubilization efficiencies of 50%, 90%, and 95% were 10.5, 52.0, and 89.6 h, respectively. The biogasification of the untreated PHB samples achieved a specific methane production rate of 3.6 mL CH4/g VSS/d and require 101.3 d for complete biogasification. The thermal-alkaline pretreatment significantly improved specific methane production rate (10.2-16.0 time increase), lag time (shortened by 76-81%), and time for complete biogasification (shortened by 21-83%) for the biogasification of the PHB samples when compared to those of the untreated PHB samples. The improvement was higher as the reaction time of the thermal-alkaline pretreatment increased. The findings of this study could be used as a valuable reference for the optimization of the biogasification process in the treatment of PHB wastes.

In this study, the inhibition of ammonia on anaerobic digestion of butyric acid was evaluated and the potential alleviating effects of such ammonia inhibition by the addition of magnetite particles were investigated. Independent anaerobic batch tests fed with butyric acid as a sole organic source were conducted in twenty 60-mL glass bottles with 10 different treatment conditions, comprising ammonia: 0.5, 2.0, 4.0, 6.0, and 7.0 g total ammonia nitrogen (TAN)/L and magnetite particles: 0 mM and 20 mM. The increase in ammonia concentration did not cause significant inhibition on methane yield; however, a significant inhibition on lag time and specific methane production rate was observed. The IC50 in the control treatments (without magnetite addition) was estimated as 6.2654 g TAN/L. A similar inhibition trend was observed in magnetite-added treatments; however, the inhibition effect by ammonia was significantly alleviated in lag time and specific methane production rate when compared to those in the control treatments. The lag time was shortened by 1.6–46.3%, specific methane production rate was improved by 6.0–69.0%. In the magnetite-added treatments, IC50 was estimated as 8.5361 g TAN/L. This study successfully demonstrated the potential of magnetite particles as an enhancer in anaerobic digestion of butyric acid under conditions of ammonia stress.

The present study investigated the effect of ammonia load on microbial communities in mesophilic anaerobic digestion of propionic acid. A laboratory-scale continuous anaerobic digester treating propionic acid as a sole organic substrate was operated under non-inhibitory condition and inhibitory conditions with ammonia (1.5 g and 3.5 g ammonia-N/L, respectively), and bacterial and archaeal communities in the steady states of each ammonia condition were analyzed using high-throughput sequencing. Thirteen bacterial families were detected as abundant bacterial groups in mesophilic anaerobic digestion of propionic acid. Increase in ammonia concentration resulted in significant shifts in microbial community structures. Syntorophobacter, Pelotomaculum, and Thermovigra were determined as the dominant groups of (potential) propionate oxidizing bacteria in the non-inhibitory condition, whereas Cryptanaerobacter and Aminobacterium were the dominant groups of (potential) propionate oxidizing bacteria in the ammonia-inhibitory condition. Methanoculleus and Methanosaeta were the dominant methanogens. Acetate-oxidation coupled with hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis might be enhanced with increases in the relative abundances of Methanoculleus and Tepidanaerobacter acetatoxydans under the ammonia-inhibitory condition. The results of the present study could be a valuable reference for microbial management of anaerobic digestion systems that are exposed to ammonia inhibition and propionic acid accumulation.

In the current study, MIL-101(Cr)-SO3H[HCl] as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) was fabricated via a hydrothermal method. The physicochemical properties of the synthesized material were characterized using XRD, FT-IR, FE-SEM, TEM, and BET surface area analysis. The XRD diffraction pattern of the prepared MIL-101(Cr)-SO3H[HCl] was similar to previously reported patterns of MIL-101(Cr) type materials, indicating successful synthesis of MIL-101(Cr)-SO3H[HCl]. The FT-IR spectrum revealed the molecular structure and functional groups of the synthesized MIL-101(Cr)-SO3H[HCl]. FE-SEM and TEM images indicated the formation of rectangular parallelopiped structures in the prepared MIL-101(Cr)-SO3H[HCl]. Furthermore, the EDS spectrum showed that the synthesized material consisted of the elements of Cr, O, S, and C. The fabricated MIL-101(Cr)-SO3H[HCl] was then employed as an adsorbent for the removal of Sr2+ and Cs+ from aqueous solutions. The adsorption kinetics and adsorption isotherm models were studied in detail. The maximum adsorption capacities of MIL-101(Cr)-SO3H[HCl] for Sr2+ and Cs+ according to pH (3, 5.3∼5.8, 10) were 35.05, 43.35, and 79.72 mg/g and 78.58, 74.58, and 169.74 mg/g, respectively. These results demonstrate the potential of the synthesized MOFs, which can be effectively applied as an adsorbent for the removal of Sr2+ and Cs+ ions from aqueous solutions and other diverse applications.

In the current study, a Cu2O/TiO2 photoinduced nanocomposite materials prepared by ultrasonification method was evaluated the photocatalytic oxidation efficiency of volatile organic compounds (BTEX) under visible-light irradiation. The results of XRD confirmed the successful preparation of photoinduced nanocomposite materials. However, diffraction peaks belonging to TiO2 were not confirmed for the Cu2O/TiO2. The possible reason for the absence of Cu2O peak is their low content and small particle size. The result of uv-vis spectra exhibited that the fabricated Cu2O/TiO2 can be activated under visible light irradiation. The FE-SEM/EDS and TEM showed the formation of synthesized nanocomposites and componential analysis in the undoped TiO2 and Cu2O/TiO2. The photocatalytic oxidation efficiencies of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and o-xylene with Cu2O/TiO2 were higher than undoped TiO2. According to light sources, the average oxidation efficiencies for BTEX by Cu2OT-0.5 were exhibited in the orer of 8 W day light > violet LEDs > white LEDs. However, the photocatalytic oxidation efficiencies normalized to supplied electric power were calculated to be in the following order of violet LEDs > white LEDs > 8 W day light, indicating that the LEDs could be a much more energy efficient light source for the photo-oxidation of gaseous BTEX using Cu2O/TiO2.

This study evaluated the photocatalytic oxidation efficiency of volatile organic compounds by Cu2O -TiO2 under visible-light irradiation. Cu2O-TiO2 was synthesized by an ultrasonic-assisted method. The XRD result indicated successful p-n type photocatalysts. However, no diffraction peaks belonging to TiO2 were observed for the Cu2O-TiO2. The Uv-vis spectra result revealed that the synthesized Cu2O-TiO2 can be activated under visible-light irradiation. The FE-TEM/EDS result showed the formation of synthesized nanocomposites in the commercial P25 TiO2, the undoped TiO2, and Cu2O-TiO2 and componential analysis in the undoped TiO2 and Cu2O-TiO2. The photocatalytic oxidation efficiencies of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and o-xylene with Cu2O-TiO2 were higher than those of P25 TiO2 and undoped TiO2. These results indicate that the prepared Cu2O-TiO2 photocatalyst can be applied effectively to control gaseous BTEX.

In this study, we evaluated the photocatalytic oxidation efficiency of aromatic volatile hydrocarbons by using WO3–doped TiO2 nanotubes (WTNTs) under visible-light irradiation. One-dimensional WTNTs were synthesized by ultrasonic-assisted hydrothermal method and impregnation. XRD analysis revealed successful incorporation of WO3 into TiO2 nanotube (TNT) structures. UV-Vis spectra exhibited that the synthesized WTNT samples can be activated under visible light irradiation. FE-SEM and TEM images showed the one-dimensional structure of the prepared TNTs and WTNTs. The photocatalytic oxidation efficiencies of toluene, ethylbenzene, and o-xylene were higher using WTNT samples than undoped TNT. These results were explained based on the charge separation ability, adsorption capability, and light absorption of the sample photocatalysts. Among the different light sources, light-emitting-diodes (LEDs) are more highly energy-efficient than 8-W daylight used for the photocatalytic oxidation of toluene, ethylbenzene, and o-xylene, though the photocatalytic oxidation efficiency is higher for 8-W daylight.