The aim of study was to investigate polluted amounts 16 PAHs in railroad(waste railway ties) area, factory area and land-fill area. All of the samples were analyzed by GC-MSD(SIM mode), and the recovery range, detection limit and standard deviation obtained by this experiment were 73.88 ~ 94.75%, 0.009 ~ 2.252 μg/kg and 1.861 ~ 12.373, respectively. The concentrations of total PAHs(t-PAHs) and total carcinogenic PAHs(t-PAHcarc) in soils of three area were in the range of 12.54 ~ 3274.95 μg/kg on a wet weight basis with a mean value of 499.8 μg/kg and 0 ~122.77 μg/kg with a mean value of 20.16 μg/kg, respectively. The correlation between t-PAHs and t-PAHcarc appeared very high in railroad(waste railway ties) area (R2 = 0.8301), factory area (R2 = 0.9217) except land-fill area(R2 = 0.3782), indicated that t-PAHcarc concentration increases in proportion with t-PAHs.

A phytoremediation study has been conducted to see if some known aquatic plants can remove the pesticides, endosulfan-α, β and fenitrothion which are frequently used in the crop protection and golf course management, and are likely to exist as residual pollutants in the aquatic ecosystems. Among the five aquatic plants tested in the microcosms, water lily Nymphaea tetragona Georgi showed the highest degradation efficacies (85~95%) for the three pesticides as opposed to the control(13~26%). The efficacies for the other plants were in the range of 46~80% in the order of Pistia stratiotes, Cyperus helferi, Eichhornia crassipes, and Iris pseudoacorus. Fenitrothion, an organo-phosphorus pesticide, was much more vulnerable to the phytoremediation than the organo-chlorine pesticides, endosulfan-α and endosulfan-β. The kinetic rate constants (min-1) for removal of the three pesticides were more than 10 times higher than the control (non-planting) in case of Nymphaea tetragona Georgi. This aquatic plant showed kinetic rate constants about 2 times as much as the lower kinetic rate constants shown by Iris pseudoacorus. The reason for the highest degradation efficacy of water lily would be that the plant can live in the sediment and possess roots and broad leaves which could absorb or accumulate and degrade more pollutants in association with microbes. These results indicate that some of the selected aquatic plants planted near the agricultural lands and wetlands could contribute to remediation of pesticides present in these places, and could be applicable to protection of the aquatic ecosystems.

This study was to investigate time-dependent degradation process under various pH condition for organophosphorus(org-p) insecticides, namely Demeton-s-methyl, Diazinon, Parathion, Phenthoate, and EPN in several waters. They were analysed by GC-FTD according to standard methods for the examination of water and wastewater. In pH=4, diazinon showed disappearance after 14 days in chromatogram. In pH=11, org-p insecticides were almost degradable after 7 days. In this condition, effect of pH on degradation process was greater than that of light. In pH=7, org-p insecticides persisted residues after 112 days except Demeton-s-methyl. In BOD_5 120, 250 ppm and domestic water, org-p insecticides showed also rapid degradation process.

PAHs are major pollutants that are widely distributed in soil and groundwater environment, so that may be regarded as carcinogens. We investigated the degradation kinetics of PAH in aqueous solution when low pressure UV energy and ultrasonic irradiation were applied. Phenanthrene and pyrene were used as model compounds. The degrees of degradation of these compounds with time were analyzed with a GC/MSD (SIM-mode). UV photolysis experiments showed that phenanthrene was reduced by 90～67% at initial concentrations of 1 ppm to 8ppm whilst it decreased to 50% at 10 ppm. Under the same conditions pyrene was degraded up to about 75% at lower initial concentrations but the reduction efficiency dropped to a level of 34 to 29% at the higher concentrations above 8 ppm. The reaction orders for phenanthrene and pyrene were found to be zero-th and ca. -0.4th order, respectively, thus implying that the reported assumption of pseudo 1st order reaction for some PAHs would be no longer valid. PAH degradation was roughly proportional to the intensity of UV (number of lamps), exhibiting maximum 92.5% of the degradation efficiency. The solution pH was lowered to 4.4 from 6.4 during the experiments partially because the carbons decomposed by the energy reacted with oxygen radicals to produce carbon dioxides. Ultrasonic irradiation on phenanthrene solutions gave relatively poor results which matched to 50 to 70% of degradation efficiency even at 2 ppm of initial concentration. Phenanthrene was found to be degraded more efficiently than pyrene for the two energy sources. Ultrasound also followed the same reaction kinetics as UV energy on PAH degradation.