Improving the Efficiency of Pyrolysis and Increasing the Quality of Gas Production through Optimization of Prototype Systems
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Authors reported an interesting data set about pyrolysis process improvement. The scientific methodology is quite solid but the presentation is far from the minimum average required fo pubblication. The quality of the language is poor, the literature cited is insufficent
Furthermore there are some errors such as:
lines 37-38: There was no verbs. This sentence is incomprehensible
line 40: A citation is needed.
line 43: Replace "do not have" with "do not use"
line 46: Replace "The properties of dismantling and energy processes" with "The properties of dismantling and energy can summarized as follow"
lines 47-51: Do not use equal sign. Use the appropriate chemistry notation (arrow). Add a reference for each energy value reported.
line 66-67: Merge table 1 with caption of Figure 1. Authors own research is not a citation. If you do not have citable item remove it.
line 77: Replace "clean" with "a clean"
line 87-89: Merge table 2 with caption of Figure 2. Authors own research is not a citation. If you do not have citable item remove it.
line 98: Replace "the fixed-bed (zone) reactor model" with "the fixed-bed zone of the reactor model"
line 100: a citation is needed
line 113: Replace e.g. with i.e.
line 114: What does it mean G50?
line 116-120: Merge lines 117-120 with caption of Figure 3. Authors own research is not a citation. If you do not have citable item remove it.
line 124: Verb is missed
line 127-128: Italics is not needed. Rewrite with more carefully.
line 138: Replace e.g. with i.e.
lines 151-152:Italics is not needed. Rewrite with more carefully.
line 156: Define each parameter shown in Figure 5.Authors own research is not a citation. If you do not have citable item remove it.
line 168. Improve teh resolution of figure 6.
line 173: Italis is not needed.
line 187:Authors own research is not a citation. If you do not have citable item remove it.
line 191:Italics is not needed. Rewrite with more carefully.
line 196:Italics is not needed.
line 200: What does it mean "particles between the particles"? Who is going to decide which are the particles and the particles between particles? Rewrite more clearly.
line 206:Italics is not needed.
lines 210-211:Italics is not needed.
line 213: What did you mean with "Carbon from biomass is highly porous."?Explain.
lines 214-215:What did you mean with "The pores could be open, closed or connected shapes"? Explain.
lines 217-218: Citations for each methods must be provided.
lines 222-223: Rewrite the sentence is not clear.
line 224: Replace "In" with "During"
line 231: Which sources?
line 232-235: Rewrite. It is incomprehensible.
line 239:Authors own research is not a citation. If you do not have citable item remove it.
line 264: Authors own research is not a citation. If you do not have citable item remove it.
line 269: Replace "In contrary"" with"Contrary"
lines 272-276: In figures 9 and 10 error bar are missed. Add them because a data without error is not a scientific data. Furthermore, Authors own research is not a citation. If you do not have citable item remove it.
lines 280-281: In figure 11 error bar are missed. Add them because a data without error is not a scientific data. Furthermore, Authors own research is not a citation. If you do not have citable item remove it.
line 291:Authors own research is not a citation. If you do not have citable item remove it.
Additionally, numbers must be reported as xx.xx and not as xx,xx. Change through all teh manuscript.
I discouraged the pubblication of this manuscript without a deep and accurate revision.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer1,
Thank you very much for your thorough review of the article we submitted. It was a big help during the repair to make point-by-point suggestions for correction. These have been taken into account and improved where possible. We have made point-by-point adjustments to the comments below, and we thank you very much for your support. The necessary references have been added to the list of references and in some cases, we deleted from previous sources.
We would like to underline that the submitted scientific material is not a classic research paper but a research report and therefore does not follow the usual formal requirements. Within the project, our main goal was to improve system performance without major changes while maintaining or increasing the purity of the gas produced. In the literature, we have found technology variants that work towards improving the purity of the gas. Introducing water and air into the oxidation or reduction space generally improves the composition of the gas and reduces the tar content. By injecting water, water (vapor) flowing into the open pores of the carbon particles dissociates into hydrogen and carbon monoxide. This changes the composition, flammability and energy content of the gas. Measurements show that the relationship between water and air supply reduced exponentially (almost linear). It follows that when the air is increasing, the amount of water must be reduced. In the literature, it has been pointed out that the effect of water and air intake and the re-mixing of the primary gas changes the composition of the usable gas and increases its energy content. Our experiments with the prototype equipment showed that the changes in the gas composition of this medium-sized hardwood biomass shavings were significant. The new result, that the mass flow of the "material" to be conveyed is determined by the throat diameter of the reducing cone, and the flow rate on the base materials can only be adjusted by vibrating the mass of the material in and below the cone to facilitate flow.
Thank you again,
The Authors
List of corrected comments:
lines 37-38: There was no verbs. This sentence is incomprehensible
line 40: A citation is needed.
line 43: Replace "do not have" with "do not use"
line 46: Replace "The properties of dismantling and energy processes" with "The properties of dismantling and energy can summarized as follow"
lines 47-51: Do not use equal sign. Use the appropriate chemistry notation (arrow). Add a reference for each energy value reported.
line 66-67: Merge table 1 with caption of Figure 1. Authors own research is not a citation. If you do not have citable item remove it.
line 77: Replace "clean" with "a clean"
line 87-89: Merge table 2 with caption of Figure 2. Authors own research is not a citation. If you do not have citable item remove it.
line 98: Replace "the fixed-bed (zone) reactor model" with "the fixed-bed zone of the reactor model"
line 100: a citation is needed
line 113: Replace e.g. with i.e.
line 114: What does it mean G50?
line 116-120: Merge lines 117-120 with caption of Figure 3. Authors own research is not a citation. If you do not have citable item remove it.
line 124: Verb is missed
line 127-128: Italics is not needed. Rewrite with more carefully.
line 138: Replace e.g. with i.e.
lines 151-152:Italics is not needed. Rewrite with more carefully.
line 156: Define each parameter shown in Figure 5.Authors own research is not a citation. If you do not have citable item remove it.
line 168. Improve teh resolution of figure 6.
line 173: Italis is not needed.
line 187:Authors own research is not a citation. If you do not have citable item remove it.
line 191:Italics is not needed. Rewrite with more carefully.
line 196:Italics is not needed.
line 200: What does it mean "particles between the particles"? Who is going to decide which are the particles and the particles between particles? Rewrite more clearly.
line 206:Italics is not needed.
lines 210-211:Italics is not needed.
line 213: What did you mean with "Carbon from biomass is highly porous."?Explain.
lines 214-215:What did you mean with "The pores could be open, closed or connected shapes"? Explain.
lines 217-218: Citations for each methods must be provided.
lines 222-223: Rewrite the sentence is not clear.
line 224: Replace "In" with "During"
line 231: Which sources?
line 232-235: Rewrite. It is incomprehensible.
line 239:Authors own research is not a citation. If you do not have citable item remove it.
line 264: Authors own research is not a citation. If you do not have citable item remove it.
line 269: Replace "In contrary"" with"Contrary"
lines 272-276: In figures 9 and 10 error bar are missed. Add them because a data without error is not a scientific data. Furthermore, Authors own research is not a citation. If you do not have citable item remove it.
lines 280-281: In figure 11 error bar are missed. Add them because a data without error is not a scientific data. Furthermore, Authors own research is not a citation. If you do not have citable item remove it.
line 291:Authors own research is not a citation. If you do not have citable item remove it.
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper describes the biomass pyrolysis system, and provides analysis of its operation. The topic is important, and might have practical impact on development of biomass based distributed electricity generation.
It appears, however, very difficult to follow the technical matter presented, and to judge whether or not the paper is correct. The reason is - very bad English. Some examples extracted from the paper are given below, but in general almost all sentences contain some errors (grammatical, incorrect naming, etc).
43 In the quality zone, endothermic processes subtraction heat from the environment.
62 The total space of the reactor (from the gas discharge side) is less than atmospheric pressure
72 This allows the engine to be bought from the build-up of deposits in the combustion chamber.
73 The waste heat generated in the engine in two pieces (water/water heat exchanger).
74 The heat exchangers serve to preheat domestic hot water.
Figure 8. Conversion of water entering the poles of a high-carbon particle (poles – should be pores)
Author Response
Dear Reviewer2,
Thank you very much for your comments and corrections. We have reviewed the text and revised the English content, focusing on the suggestions below. The in-depth content review was very useful as we discovered additional misspellings that did not give a clear meaning to each passage.
We would like to underline that the submitted scientific material is not a classic research paper but a research report and therefore does not follow the usual formal requirements. Within the project, our main goal was to improve system performance without major changes while maintaining or increasing the purity of the gas produced. In the literature, we have found technology variants that work towards improving the purity of the gas. Introducing water and air into the oxidation or reduction space generally improves the composition of the gas and reduces the tar content. By injecting water, water (vapor) flowing into the open pores of the carbon particles dissociates into hydrogen and carbon monoxide. This changes the composition, flammability and energy content of the gas. Measurements show that the relationship between water and air supply reduced exponentially (almost linear). It follows that when the air is increasing, the amount of water must be reduced. In the literature, it has been pointed out that the effect of water and air intake and the re-mixing of the primary gas changes the composition of the usable gas and increases its energy content. Our experiments with the prototype equipment showed that the changes in the gas composition of this medium-sized hardwood biomass shavings were significant. The new result, that the mass flow of the "material" to be conveyed is determined by the throat diameter of the reducing cone, and the flow rate on the base materials can only be adjusted by vibrating the mass of the material in and below the cone to facilitate flow.
Thank you for your comments and advice,
The Authors
List of corrected comments:
43 In the quality zone, endothermic processes subtraction heat from the environment.
62 The total space of the reactor (from the gas discharge side) is less than atmospheric pressure
72 This allows the engine to be bought from the build-up of deposits in the combustion chamber.
73 The waste heat generated by the engine in two pieces (water / water heat exchanger).
74 The heat exchangers serve to preheat domestic hot water.
Figure 8. Conversion of water entering poles from a high-carbon particle (poles - should be pores)
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The main issues were adressed.
In the present form this article is suitable fo pubblication.
Still, i recomand to the authors to include errors analysis in the future pubblications.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer1,
Very thank you for scientific contribution, it was very useful to read and built-in into the paper your comments!
Best wishes,
Authors
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper have been improved.
I however insist to improve English presentation. The text is not clear, it is hard to recognize whether Authors are not clearly describing the meaning of their work in their own language or the reason is in poor quality of translation to English. In many places I had guess what Authors have in mind.
Below I am giving some examples of sentences extracted from the text, and my suggestion of eventual change or question (comment) concerning this text.
I would suggest to the Authors to explain technical matter to the person who translates in such a way that the translator has some understanding of that technical issue.
46 with the entry of secondary air
47 into the fibered,
Something should appear after „fibered” otherwise the sentence is not clear
The properties of dismantling and energy
48 processes changes can be summarized as follow:
I would propose: The chemical processes and corresponding Energy changes can be
58 storage space where it is dried to the desired moisture content as needed.
storage space where it is dried to the desired moisture content.
59 The heat needed for this is provided by the energy from the hot gas by intervening in the gas
60 air heat exchanger (presented by Figure 1. and Table 1.).
59 The heat needed for this is provided by the hot gas (interacting in) (flowing through) the gas
60 air heat exchanger (presented in Figure 1. and Table 1.).
The total space
64 of the reactor (from the gas discharge side) is less than atmospheric pressure (via a connected vacuum
65 pump), which also clarifies the direction of gas flow
The pressure in the total space of the reactor (from the gas discharge side) is smaller than the atmospheric pressure (due to connected vacuum pump), which also determines the direction of gas flow
Table 1. The word: sign I would replace with the word symbol
Cold wat - should be Cold water
Waste heat from the engine is
79 present in two forms (water/water heat exchanger).
(what it means? – the heat exchanger is not a form of heat)
The air
89 heated in the heat exchanger was fed with water through a high-frequency valve, which is converted
90 to steam due to the high temperature, and passed into the space of oxidation and reduction through 91 the nozzles no.number 8.
This sentence is hard to understand, what is: high frequency valve, and why it is converted to steam
In the fixed-bed zone of the reactor model, the roasting progress takes
116 place in the form of a parabolic cone [27
Again unclear, what is real meaning of the text: the roasting progress takes place in the form of a parabolic cone the progress is time dependent phenomenon which hardly can have the form of cone
Author Response
Dear Reviewer2,
Thank you for your response! We have taken into account your valuable proposals, please check the corrected version of the submitted paper. Many thanks for the suggestions on grammar.
Best wishes,
the Authors
