Jo Apr 10, 2026
Manganese, the tenth most abundant in the earth’s crust, is commonly present in nature with iron and silica, and it is dissolved into groundwater by various hydro-chemical processes. Appropriate manganese intake is essential for human and animal development and plant growth. However, from a health and sensory point of view, the amount of manganese in drinking water should be limited to a very low value.
The value of manganese intake from drinking water recommended by WHO is 0.4mg/L.
The technique of removing manganese from water is based on the oxidation of soluble manganese forms (Mn2+) to insoluble manganese forms (Mn4+). Various water treatment technologies such as aeration, chlorination, potassium permanganate and ozonization have been proposed. However, these methods are slow in oxidization, require administration of chemical reagents, and are expensive. Therefore, they are complicated to operate in practice and difficult to apply to large-scale water treatment.
Ri Hyang Ran, a researcher at the Faculty of Earth Science and Technology, carried out some experiments to remove manganese from water using brucite marble as filter material and confirmed its applicability.
Magnesium content in the water filtered through the brucite marble filter material layer increased 1.25 times compared to the raw water, and the pH of water increased from 7.4 to over 8. As pH increased, Mn2+ concentration in the filtered water decreased from 0.6mg/L to below 0.05mg/L.
The water treatment method using brucite marble as a filter can effectively remove soluble manganese in water and can be applied to large-scale water treatment at low cost.
For more information, please refer to her paper “Experimental Study on Manganese Removal from Water by Brucite Marble” in “Proceedings of KUTIC-2025”.
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Jo Apr 9, 2026
Fluorapatite Ca10(PO4)6F2 containing the most phosphorus is widely found in igneous and sedimentary rocks. More than 60% of the phosphate currently marketed worldwide is concentrated via flotation processes. To date, there has been a growing body of research on the factors affecting apatite flotation.
According to previous literature, first-principles simulation of such mineral processing has not been fully performed. The only attempt they have made is to build a crystallographic model of a particular mineral to study its material properties and determine the relationship between its composition and properties or to compare what material is more effective as a collector for that ore.
Kim Wi Ryok, a researcher at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering, proposed a new analytical method for determining the optimum value of sodium oleate, considering the effect of the combination of pH modifier NaOH and sodium carbonate on the flotation efficiency with collectors when the optimum value of sodium oleate is used as a collector in the process of apatite flotation. He evaluated the flotation efficiency by calculating adsorption energy by first-principles calculations, calculating ion concentration variations and measuring experimental zeta potential.
The results show that flotation efficiency varies with the amount of the pH modifier even with the same collector, and the optimum value is 1:3 OH-/CO32- mass ratio. It is also shown that the simulated results estimated by the first-principles method are in good agreement with the experimental values and there is enough evidence to apply this method to other ore beneficiation processes.
You can find the details in his paper “Ab Initio Study of the Effect of OH-/CO32- Molar Ratio on Joint Characteristics between Ore & Sodium Oleate Collector in Apatite Flotation” in “Proceedings of KUTIC-2025”.
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Jo Apr 8, 2026
For building demolition and tunneling, many shock tubes must be simultaneously initiated by a detonator. Bunches of shock tubes can be initiated by bunch blocks. The initiation reliability of shock tubes depends primarily upon bunch block design.
Understanding the structural explosion shock mechanisms of bunch blocks is very important in designing bunch blocks without consumption of many shock tubes in experiments.
Choe Yong Chol, a researcher at the Faculty of Mining Engineering, investigated the structural influence of frontal bunch blocks on the initiation reliabilities of bunches of shock tubes by a detonator experimentally and numerically.
The thicker and stronger bunch block bodies and the smaller the standoff distance between detonators and bunches of shock tubes were, the more the experimentally obtained initiation rates increased. And the pressure peaks of explosion shock obtained from numerical simulations increased with increase in the thickness of bunch block bodies and decrease in the standoff distance. The numerically obtained pressure peaks were in good relation with the initiation rate obtained from the experiments.
The results can be employed for evaluating initiation reliability and designing bunch blocks when simultaneous bunch-series initiation of many shock tubes by bunch blocks is needed.
For more information, please refer to his paper “Structural Influence of Frontal Bunch Blocks on the Initiation Reliability of Bunches of Shock Tubes” in “Proceedings of KUTIC-2025”.
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Jo Apr 7, 2026
Metal hydrides have been widely used in H2 storage application because of their superior property. Among them, perovskite-type metal hydrides are considered as promising candidates of hydrogen storage due to their diversity in crystalline structure and distinctive physicochemical properties.
This attracted many researchers to the investigation into them. However, only a few papers have focused on the structure, thermal analysis and dehydrogenation kinetic properties of KxNa1-xMgH3 hydride, and yet they failed to provide full theoretical insights into the material properties of double perovskite-type hydride NaKMg2H6.
Jo Son Il, a section head at the Faculty of Material Science and Technology, elucidated the hydrogen storage property of metal hydride NaKMg2H6 by the first-principles.
Based on electronic properties, geometric factors, elastic constants and self-consistent phonon calculations, he found that NaKMg2H6 is dynamically and mechanically stable in cubic phase at elevated temperatures.
He illustrated that gravimetric and volumetric H2 storage capacities are 5.19% and 72.548g/L, respectively, and H2 desorption temperature is 470.4K.
You can find the details in his paper “Elucidating the Hydrogen Storage Property of Perovskite-Type Metal Hydride NaKMg2H6 from First-Principles” in “Proceedings of KUTIC-2025”.
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Jo Apr 6, 2026
The rapid development of modern industry requires products with good mechanical properties and light weight and thus, the application of Al and its alloys attracts a great deal of attention. Inclusions and gas in molten aluminum decrease its fluidity and make its structure rough to decrease the castability and serve as the source of crack. Also, they decrease the workability and surface finish, and especially it is unfavorable to the toughness and fatigue strength. Therefore, there have been many researches to remove these inclusions and gas.
A researcher prepared KCl-NaCl-NaF-Na2AlF6 system refining agent and estimated the refining efficiency by measuring the density of aluminum to determine the effective composition of KCl-NaCl-NaF-Na2AlF6 system. Some components of KCl-NaCl-NaF-Na2AlF6 generate gas for removing gas, but their main refining action is the absorption of oxide inclusions. In other words, the hydrogen removal effect is not so high. Therefore, it is necessary to select and use an additive to increase the amount of generated gas for improving the hydrogen removal effect.
Ri Hyok, a researcher at the Faculty of Metallic Engineering, selected an additive to improve the refining efficiency of NaCl-KCl-Na2SiF6-NaF system-compound refining agent for gas impurities in molten aluminum for continuous casting, and determined its amount.
Based on the relationship between the partial pressure and the chemical potential of refining gas and those of the hydrogen in molten aluminum, he induced a formula for determining the amount of additives. He conducted a metallic microscope analysis of newly-refined aluminum to confirm the refining efficiency.
He found that the amount of NaNO3 which was selected as an additive is 0.2% of that of refined aluminum and at that time the amount of carbon is 0.1%.
You can find his paper “Improvement of the Refining Effect of NaCl-KCl-Na2AlF6-NaF System-Refining Agent for Gas by Adding NaNO3” in “Proceedings of KUTIC-2025”.
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Jo Apr 5, 2026
Peasant dance is a folk dance that peasants in our country have danced to merry farm music from long ago. It is an optimistic and delightful popular dance of strong national coloring.
It is distinguished by its vigorous, spirited and colorful costume.
Dancers wore red jackets with yellow, white and black cuffs on the sleeves, and waistbands up to the chest tied at the back and hung down silk streamers in various colors on the back (three pieces each) in a good assortment.
At the time of dancing, especially dashing or rotating, the streamers blow and spread out in the wind to form beautiful shapes.
Peasant dance has distinguishing features in its movements and skills. Since it was a dance and a game of men, the dance movements were bold and turning round decorative tassels was focused on skills.
Turning round decorative tassels (pheasant feather or long thin strips of white paper tied to the top of soldier’s felt hat) like a windmill is peculiar to the peasant dance.
Turning round decorative tassels has tens of movements regarded as major dance movements, which are called sangmojit.
The decorative tassels as long as over 6 meters turning round on the dance field to form various shapes highlights the stunning spectacle of this folk art.
Under the wise guidance of the Workers’ Party of Korea, peasant dance is still being inherited for further development to meet the modern tastes.
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