This study developed and tested a pilot-scale biowindow for simultaneous removal of odor and methane from landfills. The test was conducted in a sanitary landfill site during the summer season (July and August). The average temperature inside the biowindow was 5°C higher than the average air temperature, rising to 37–48oC when the outdoor temperature was very hot. The complex odor removal rate (based on the dilution-to-threshold value) in the biowindow during the summer was 91.3- 98.8% (with an average of 96.2±4.2%). The average concentration of hydrogen sulfide was 3,024.9±805.8 ppb, and its concentration was found to be the highest among 22 odorous compounds. The removal efficiencies of hydrogen sulfide and methyl mercaptan were 89.1% and 83.2%, respectively. The removal of dimethyl sulfide was 17.7%, and no ammonia removal was observed. Additionally, the removal efficiencies of toluene and xylene were 85.2% and 72.5%, respectively. Although the initial methane removal was low (24.9%), the methane removal performance improved to 53.7–75.6% after the 11th day of operation. These results demonstrate that the odor and methane removal performance of the pilot-scale biowindow was relatively stable even when the internal temperature of the biowindow rose above 40oC in the summer. Since the main microorganisms responsible for decomposing odor and methane are replaced by thermotolerant or thermophilic microorganisms, and high community diversity is maintained, odor and methane in the biowindow could be stably removed even under high-temperature conditions.

Consumer demand for imported and craft beer is increasing. Almost all the malt used by craft beer companies is imported. This study sought to develop a malting technology to expand the use of domestic barley, the main raw material for beer, and to examine its influence on the quality of domestic malt. The Hopum cultivar of beer barley was purchased and used at the Jeollanam-do Seed Management Center. A pilot-scale malting facility built by the National Institute of Crop Science was used. One sack (40 kg) of barley was sieved through screening sieves, and the barley was classified according to size (3.1, 2.8, 2.5, 2.2, and 2.2 mm), with the size-related composition being 18.1, 48.9, 23.3, 6.4, and 1.0%, respectively. The malt yields were 89.0, 87.6, 86.6, 82.2, and 76.1%, respectively. The coleoptiles elongation decreased as the barley size decreased. The protein content of malt tended to be high at small particle sizes of 2.2 mm. The soluble solid content of wort prepared from malt revealed good values of 17.4-17.5oBx, except for 15.3oBx for particles <2.2 mm in size. According to barley size in the malting process, these findings should be valuable quality indicators of malt.

This study assessed the changes in the fiber properties of virgin and recovered fibers from lab-scale and pilot-scale depolymerization reactors based on the thermal air oxidation-resistance characteristics. Lab-scale and pilot-scale depolymerization reactors had different depolymerization volumes. Results showed that the lab-scale and pilot-scale peak solvent temperatures were 185 °C and 151 °C, respectively. The lab-scale had highest solvent temperature rate increase because of the small depolymerization volume and the dominant role of the cavitation volume. The structural properties of the recovered and virgin fibers were intact even after the depolymerization and after the pretreatment and oxidation-resistance test. We observed 1.213%, 1.027% and 0.842% weight loss for the recovered (lab-scale), the recovered (pilot-scale) and virgin fibers because of the removal of impurities from the surface and chemisorbed gases. Further, we observed 0.8% mass loss of the recovered fibers (lab-scale) after the oxidative-onset temperature because of the “cavitation erosion effect” from the dominant of the cavitation bubbles. The “cavitation erosion effect” was subdued because of the increased depolymerization volume in the pilot-scale reactor. Therefore, negligible impact of the pilot-scale mechanochemical recycling process on the structure and surface characteristics of the fibers and the possibility of reusing the recovered fibers recycling process were characteristic. Representative functional groups were affected by the thermal oxidation process. We conducted HPLC, HT-XRD, TGA– DSC, XPS, SEM, and AFM analysis and provided an extensive discussion of the test thereof. This study highlighted how misleading and insufficient small-lab-scale results could be in developing viable CFRP depolymerization process.

Pilot-scale coagulation and sedimentation processes were operated to investigate the T-P (Total phosphorus) removal efficiency. A multiple regression model was also derived to predict the water quality improvement effect with river water characteristics. The inflow rates for the pilot-scale facility were 157–576 m3/day, and the coagulant doses were in the range of 13.7–58.5 mg/L (average 38.9 mg/L) for PAC (Poly alum chloride) and 16.5–62.1 mg/L (average 36.0 mg/L) for alum. The results found that the influent BOD (Biochemical oxygen demand) and T-P concentrations were 4.9 mg/L and 0.115 mg/L, and the removal efficiencies were 52.7% and 59.4%, respectively. T-P removal efficiencies on wet weather days were higher by 10% than dry weather days because influent solids influenced T-P's coagulation process. The pH of river water was 6.9–7.8, and the average pH was 7.3. Although the pH variation was not significant, the trend showed that the treatment efficiency of T-P and PO4-P removal increased. Thus, the pH range considered in this study seems to be appropriate for the coagulation process, which is essential for phosphorous removal. The T-P removal efficiencies were 19.6–93.3% (average 59.2%) for PAC and 16.4–98.5%(average 55.9%) for alum; thus, both coagulants showed similar results. Furthermore, the average coagulant doses were similar at 42.4 mg/L for PAC and 41.3 mg/L for alum. When the T-P concentration of the effluent was compared by the [Al]/[P] ratio, the phosphorus concentration of the treated water decreased with an increasing [Al]/[P] ratio, and the lowest T-P concentration range appeared at the [Al]/[P] ratio of 10–30. A seasonal multiple regression analysis equations were derived from the relationships between 10 independent and dependent variables (T-P concentration of effluent). This study could help lake water quality maintenance, reduce eutrophication, and improve direction settings for urban planning, especially plans related to developing waterfront cities.

Eutrophication and algal blooms can lead to increase of taste and odor compounds and health problems by cyanobacterial toxins. To cope with these eco-social issues, Ministry of Environment in Korea has been reinforcing the effluent standards of wastewater treatment facilities. As a result, various advanced phosphorus removal processes have been adopted in each wastewater treatment plant nation-widely. However, a lot of existing advanced wastewater treatment processes have been facing the problems of expensive cost in operation and excessive sludge production caused by high dosage of coagulant. In this study, the sedimentation and dissolved air flotation (SeDAF) process integrated with sedimentation and flotation has been developed for enhanced phosphorus removal in wastewater treatment facilities. Design and operating parameters of the SeDAF process with the capacity of 100 m3/d were determined, and a demonstration plant has been installed and operated at I wastewater treatment facility (located in Gyeonggi-do) for the verification of field applicability. Several empirical evaluations for the SeDAF process were performed at demonstration-plant scale, and the results showed clearly that T-P and turbidity values of treated water were to satisfy the highest effluent standards below 0.2 mg/L and 2.0 NTU stably for all of operation cases.

A pilot-scale biocover was installed at a sanitary landfill for municipal waste, and the removal of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by the biocover was evaluated for a long period of 550 days. The biocover (2.5 m W × 5 m L × 1 m H) was constructed with the mixture of soil, perlite, earthworm cast and compost (6:2:1:1, v/v). The total VOCs concentration of the inlet gas into the biocover was 820.3 ppb~7,217.9 ppb, and the total VOCs concentration of the outlet gas from the surface of the biocover was 12.6 ppb~1,270.1 ppb. The average removal efficiency of total VOCs was 87.6 ± 11.0% (60.5% for minimum and 98.5% for maximum). Toluene concentration was the highest among the inlet VOCs, followed by ethylbenzene, m, p-xylene and o-xylene. These aromatic VOCs accounted for more than 50% of the total VOCs concentration. Other than these aromatic VOCs, hexane, cyclohexane, heptane, benzene, and acetone were major VOCs among the inlet VOCs. Compared with the VOC profiles in the inlet gas, the relative contribution of dichloromethane to the outlet VOCs emitted from the biocover layer increased from 0.1% to 15.3%. The average removal efficiencies of BTEX in the biocover were over 84% during the operation period of 550 days. The average removal efficiencies of hexane, cyclohexane and heptane in the biocover were 86.0 ± 18.9%, 85.4 ± 20.4% and 97.1 ± 4.0%, respectively. The removal efficiency of VOCs in the biocover decreased not only when the ambient temperature had fallen below 5oC, but also when the ambient temperature had risen above 23oC. Information on the VOCs removal characteristics of the biocover installed in the landfill field can be useful for commercializing the biocover technology for the treatment of VOCs.