Many advanced treatment processes have been introduced to WTPs, however, the consumer confidence on tap water is still low and the percentage of drinking water directly from the tap is less than 2 %. One of the methods to improve the credibility of tap water is to introduce a drinking water certification system. By introducing the system, water treatment processes can be optimized, which in turn, can significantly improve drinking water quality. In this paper, 6 water quality parameters(i.e., turbidity, CT, residual chlorine, geosmin, 2-MIB, Mn) which have significant influences on tap water quality and consumer confidence were identified, and their recommended guidelines were proposed. 3-Star or 5-Star certification can be awarded to the WTPs which have met the certification criteria. The drinking water certification system can be carried out as a voluntary program among drinking water suppliers.
Green roofs are gaining much interest in many cities around the world due to its multi-purpose effects of water conservation, flood mitigation and aesthetic benefits. However it may cause additional water demand to maintain green plants, which may intensify the current and future water shortage problems. While ordinary concrete roofs and normal green roof drains off rain water, concave green roof system can retain rain water because of its water holding capability. In this study, the water conservation effect of concave green roof was compared to normal roof on #35 building in Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea. For seven rainfall events the amount of stored rainwater and runoff were measured and proved water conservation effect of the concave green roof system. The concave green roof system of which area is 140m2 showed effect of water conservation from 1.8ton to 7.2ton and the most influence factors on water conservation in green roof are rainfall and antecedent day. If this concave green roof is applied to many buildings in the cities, it is expected as a way to water conservation through rainfall storage.
The economic effects of sewage and wastewater treatment service (SWTS) sector on other sectors have been rarely investigated in the literature. This paper attempts to apply an inter-industry analysis to looking into the economic effects of the SWTS sector. To this end, the most recently published 2012 input-output table is used here. In particular, the SWTS sector is specified as exogeneous to identify the economic effects of the SWTS sector on other sectors. Production-inducing effect, value-added creation effect, and employment-inducing effect are quantified based on demand-driven model. Supply shortage effect and price pervasive effect are also analyzed employing supply-driven model and Leontief price model, respectively. The results show that production-inducing effect and value-added creation effect of a unit of investment or production in SWTS sector are estimated to be 1.7076 and 0.7392, respectively. The employment-inducing effect of one billion of investment or production in the SWTS sector is computed to be 11.0498 persons. The shortage effect of the SWTS sector amounts to 0.8417 won. The overall price effect of the 10% increase in the price of SWTS sector is calculated to be 0.0115%. This quantitative information can be utilized in predicting the economic effects of the SWTS sector-related activities or policy-making.
Response surface methodology (RSM) based on a Box-Behnken Design (BBD) was applied to optimize the thermal-alkaline pre-treatment operating conditions for anaerobic digestion of flotation scum in food waste leachate. Three independent variables such as thermal temperature, NaOH concentration and reaction time were evaluated. The maximum methane production of 369.2 mL CH4/g VS was estimated under the optimum conditions at 62.0°C, 10.1% NaOH and 35.4 min reaction time. A confirmation test of the predicted optimum conditions verified the validity of the BBD with RSM. The analysis of variance indicated that methane production was more sensitive to both NaOH concentration and thermal temperature than reaction time. Thermal-alkaline pretreatment enhanced the improvement of 40% in methane production compared to the control experiment due to the effective hydrolysis and/or solubilization of organic matters. The fractions with molecular weight cut-off of scum in food waste leachate were conducted before and after pre-treatment to estimate the behaviors of organic matters. The experiment results found that thermal-alkaline pre-treatment could reduce the organic matters more than 10kD with increase the organic matters less than 1kD.
The determining the appropriate dosage of coagulant is very important, because dosage of coagulant in the coagulation process for wastewater affects removing the amount of pollutants, cost, and producing sludge amount. Accordingly, in this study, in order to determine the optimal PAC dosage in the coagulation process, CCD (Central composite design) was used to proceed experimental design, and the quadratic regression models were constructed between independent variables (pH, influent turbidity, PAC dosage) and each response variable (Total coliform, E.coli, PSD (Particle size distribution) (‹10 μm), TP, PO4-P, and CODcr) by the RSM (Response surface methodology). Also, Considering the various response variables, the optimum PAC dosage and range were derived. As a result, in order to maximize the removal rate of total coliform and E.coli, the values of independent variables are the pH 6-7, the influent turbidity 100-200 NTU, and the PAC dosage 0.07-0.09 ml/L. For maximizing the removal rate of TP, PO4-P, CODcr, and PSD(‹10 μm), it is required for the pH 9, the influent turbidity 200-250 NTU, and the PAC dosage 0.05-0.065 ml/L. In the case of multiple independent variables, when the desirable removal rate for total coliform, E.coli, TP, and PO4-P is 90-100 % and that for CODcr and PSD(‹10 μm) is 50-100 %, the required PAC dosage is 0.05-0.07 ml/L in the pH 9 and influent turbidity 200-250 NTU. Thus, if the influent turbidity is high, adjusting pH is more effective way in terms of cost since a small amount of PAC dosage is required.
The purpose of this study is to estimate the applicability of a stable anaerobic digester using a separator membrane to the preprocessing thickening process. The results of the experiments showed about a 47.16% weight loss rate for the sludge under anaerobic condition, and about 41.17% under intermittent aeration condition. The concentrations of rejection water were SCODCr 25 mg/L, T-N 16.6 mg/L, and T-P 1.4 mg/L on the average under the intermittent aeration condition, which were lower than the concentrations of rejection water under an anaerobic condition. As for the factors affecting the reduction of the flux, correlation analyses of TTF, MLSS, SCODCr, and EPSProtein, EPSPolysacchride resulted in -0.97, -0.95, -0.84 and -0.86, -0.95, respectively, which showed that TTF had the highest correlation to the reduction of the flux. In addition, it was concluded that MLSS, SCODCr and EPSProtein, EPSPolysacchride also have close correlations. The results are considered to show that, in the case of the process using a tubular membrane in the preprocessing process of an anaerobic digester, an intermittent aeration condition of the thickener considering the contamination of the membrane and load of rejection water is appropriate for the stable preprocessing process.
This study focused on evaluating the efficiency of the removal of non-point source pollution by Daecheong Lake Juwon Stream constructed wetlands. The constructed wetland system is a surface flow type designed in the year 2007 for purifying eutrophic water of Daecheong Lake Juwon Stream. The value of conductivity, suspended solids(SS), chemical oxygen demand using a potassium permanganate(CODMn), five-day biochemical oxygen demand(BOD5), total nitrogen(T-N), total phosphorous(T-P), and pH in inflow averaged 220.2, 2.46, 3.33, 1.34, 2.00, 0.04 mg/L and 7.24, respectively and in outflow averaged 227.9, 1.12, 3.34, 0.87, 1.16, 0.02 mg/L and 7.45, respectively. The average removal efficiency of constructed wetlands was 30 % for SS, 22 % for BOD5, 45 % for T-N and 31 % for T-P. The removal rates of SS, BOD5 and T-N in the spring, summer and autumn were higher than those in winter. The removal rate of T-P was not significant different in all seasons. The amounts of pollutants removal in the constructed wetlands were higher in the order of 3rd ‹ 2nd ‹ 1st wetland for SS and T-P, 2nd ‹ 3rd ‹ 1st wetland for BOD5 and T-N. Therefore, our findings suggest that the constructed wetlands could well treat the eutrophic Daecheong Lake Juwon Stream waters.
District Metered Area (DMA) construction is one of the most cost effective alternatives for management of water loss (i.e., water leakage) and energy consumption (i.e., water pressure) in water distribution systems. Therefore, it’s being implemented to numerous new and existing water distribution systems worldwide. However, due to the complexity of water distribution systems, especially large-scale and highly looped systems, it is still very difficult to define the optimal boundary of DMAs considering all the aspects of water distribution system management requirements. In this study, a DMA design methodology (or a DMA design model) was developed with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and hydraulic distribution system model to determine the optimal DMA boundary.
Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) membrane has high resistance to chlorine, which is a great advantages in chemical cleaning to recover water flux during membrane processes in drinking water systems. A humic kaolin water with approximately 4 mg/L of DOC and 10 NTU of turbidity was prepared as a feed water. Coagulation pretreatment with or without settling was applied. The coagulation with settling showed the greatest water production. The reduced flux was effectively recovered by NaOCl cleaning, i.e., 21% recovery by 50 mg/L of NaOCl cleaning and 49% recovery by 500 mg/L NaOCl cleaning. The images of SEM and AFM analyses were corresponded to the water flux variation. However, when the floc was accumulated on the membrane surfaces, the efficiency of NaOCl cleaning was substantially limited. In addition, dynamic contact angle became greater after cleaning, which indicates changes in characteristics of fouling layer such as surface hydrophobicity. Proper cleaning technologies during enhanced backwash using NaOCl would expand application of PTFE membranes in drinking water systems.
To improve stability of the water resources that were seriously affected by climate change and various environmental effects and to supply the clean water always, continuous efforts are essential. Provision of measures with respect of hardware is basically essential to improve the water resources stability due to the topographic characteristic in Korea. However, building a new dam becomes gradually very difficult because of a hardship in selecting right places, opposition forces such as environment and local residents, negative publicity for large civil engineering projects, and so on. The present study, therefore, proposes the Blue dam as an alternative for securing the water resources of a new concept considering domestic conditions. To evaluate the effect of the Blue dam, the Hec-ResSim model is used and the probabilistic discharge flow rate is applied. As a result, when Dam Yeongcheon is applied as a study area, securing water resources of 14 million tons are predicted be secured and the flood control of 15.4 million tons is expected, in comparison with operation of the existing dam only. Consequently, Blue dams are supposed to carry out the function of securing water resources, controling flood, maintaining eco-environmental instream flow, generating hydroelectric power, and providing spaces for recreational activities.
The main objective of this research is to study feasibility for applying metal membrane to remove particles from air scouring membrane backwash water. Also, the research was conducted to investigate the influence of polyamine coagulation on floc growth in membrane backwash water as pretreatment for removal particles. From the results of experiments for evaluating the influence of polyamine coagulation on floc growth, it was investigated that particles in the rage of 2~50 μm grew up to 30~5,000 μm. In addition, all six metal membranes showed lower removal efficiency, which was 0.87~13.89%, in the case of no polyamine coagulant. On the other hand, in the case of injecting polyamine coagulant, those did extremely high efficiency in 56~92%. From the SEM(Scanning Electron Microscope) images of filtered wiremesh and metal foam membrane, sieve effects were predominant for liquid solid separation in wiremesh and adsorption and diffusion capture effects were predominant in metal foam membrane.
In this study, we applied a membrane distillation process to investigate a feasibility of treating a wastewater with high concentration of organic matters including nitrogen and phosphorus. The laboratory scale experiment was performed by using a hydrophobic PVDF membrane with the pore size of 0.22 μm and porosity of 75%. The installation was direct contact type where the temperature difference between a feed and permeate side was controlled to have a range from 20 to 60°C. We observed a flux variation and a concentration changes of COD, PO4 3--P, NH4 + -N and conductivity of feed side as well as permeate side with various temperature differences (20 to 60°C), cross flow velocities (0.09 to 0.27 m/s) through the module, and pH (6.6 to 12.0) of the feed that has the initial concentration of COD about 1,000 mg/L, total nitrogen 390 mg/L, total phosphorus 10 mg/L, conductivity of 7,000 μs/cm. The results showed that the average flux was ranged from 4 to 40 L/m2/hr which was almost similar with the flux of NaCl and deionized water used as a feed solution. The lowest flux was obtained at the operating condition with the temperature difference of 20°C and cross flow velocity of 0.09 m/s while the highest one was measured with 60°C and 0.27 m/s. Above 99% of COD and PO4 3- -P in the feed could be rejected regardless of an operating condition. However, the removal rate of ammonium nitrogen was varied from 64 to 99% depending on the pH of feed solution.