The removal of organic carbon and nutrients (i.e. N and P) from wastewater is essential for the protection of the water environment. Especially, nitrogen compounds cause eutrophication in the water environment, resulting in bad water quality. Conventional nitrogen removal systems require high aeration costs and additional organic carbon. Microbial electrochemical system (MES) is a sustainable environmental system that treats wastewater and produces energy or valuable chemicals by using microbial electrochemical reaction. Innovative and cost-effective nitrogen removal is feasible by using MESs and increasing attention has been given to the MES development. In this review, recent trends of MESs for nitrogen removal and their mechanism were conclusively reviewed and future research outlooks were also introduced.

Understanding of a carbon storage in a regional scale ecosystem is a very important data for predicting change of global carbon cycle. Therefore, the real data collected in the various ecosystems are a very useful for enhancing accuracy of model prediction. We tried to estimate total accumulated ecosystem carbon in Deogyusan National Park (DNP) with naturally well preserved ecosystem. In DNP, vegetations were classified to four main communities with Quercus mongolica community (12,636.9 ha, 54.8%), Quercus variabilis community (2,987.0 ha, 13.0%), Pinus densiflora community (5,758.0 ha, 25.0%), and Quercus serrata community (402.9 ha,1.7%). Biomass and soil carbons were estimated by the biomass allometric equations based on the DBH and carbon contents of litter and soil (0~30 cm) layers collected in 3 plots (30 cm×30 cm) in each community. The biomass and soil carbons were shown as high value as 1,759,000 tC and 7,776,000 tC, respectively, in Quercus mongolia community in DNP area. In Quercus mongolica, Quercus variabilis, Quercus serrata, Pinus densiflora communities, the accumulated ecosystem carbon were shown 9,536,000 tC, 1,405,000 tC, 147,000 tC, 346,000 tC, respectively. Also, the total ecosystem carbon was estimated with 11,434,000 tC in DNP.

This study was conducted for the efficient utilization of biomaterials such as starch residue, tangerine skin, and green tea residue, which are agricultral by-products discarded in Cheju Province annually, as adsorbents and biomaterials were examined for their removal ability of heavy metal ions in waste water by batch adsorption experiments. The removal efficiency of biomaterials for heavy metal ions was above 80-90% and almost similar to activated carbon and the adsorption ability of those treated with 포르말린 was improved in the green tea residue only for Pb^2+, Cu^2+, and Zn^2+. In the conditions of pH, the removal efficiency of heavy metal ions was high in the range of 5-7. In the solutions which heavy metal ions were mixed, the removal efficiency was similar at Ag^+, Pb^2+ and reduced to about 10% at the other ions, as compared with the solutions they were not mixed. Adsorption isotherms of biomaterials was generally obeyed to Freundlich formular than Langmuir formular and Freundlich constant, 1/n were obtained in the range of 0.1-0.5.