Utilization of Municipal Solid Waste Incineration Bottom Ash as Fine Aggregate of Cement Mortars

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The topic of the paper is of some interest. Nevertheless, the quality of the paper is notably poor due to the numerous lexical errors that make the text difficult to understand. It will be possible to express an opinion on the quality of the research only after an extensive review by a native English speaker. Some of the critical points to review are listed below.

 

Lines 25-26

“This is as a big risk to apply the incineration bottom ash as a fine aggregate.”

This sentence needs to be changed.

 

Lines 39-42

“However, MSW Incineration Bottom Ash (IBA) is the by-product of incineration process, which accounts for the largest portion (about 80%) of the incineration process is generally consists of minerals, glass, ceramics, metallics, and unburned organic matter”

This sentence needs to be changed.

 

Lines 70-72

“This study aims to have enhanced mechanical and microstructure properties of cement mortar compared to natural aggregate used cement mortar by adding a sieving process in the conventional pretreatment process to decrease the particle size of IBA.”

This sentence needs to be changed.

 

Lines 138-142

“To identify the effect of IBA aggregate as a filler on microstructure of cement composite, porosity measurement test following to previous research [24], MIP used Micromeritics Autopore 9520 and a scanning electron microscope (accelerating voltage: 0.230 kV, probe current: 10E-12 to 10E-5A, SEI resolution: 3.5 nm, and magnification: 10x to 300,000x) was used in this experiment. Equation (1) is to calculate the pore diameter [25].”

This sentence needs to be changed.

 

Line 202-203

“As a result of the compressive strength, IBA5 and IBA15 were able to estimate through IBA10 and IBA20.”

This sentence needs to be changed.

 

Lines 285-286

“First, it is essential the eliminate or reduce ASR reactive components.”

This sentence needs to be changed.

 

Lines 287-288

“Second, pre-treatment of IBA before applying to cement composites due to the heavy metals.”

This is a fragment. Consider revising.

 

Author Response

Respected Reviewer,

Thank you for reviewing our manuscript entitled “Utilization of Municipal Solid Waste Incineration Bottom Ash as Fine Aggregate of Cement Mortars” for possible publication in the journal of “Sustainability”. We are thankful to you for your quick and valuable feedbacks to improve the quality of our manuscript for possible publication in the journal. We have revised the manuscript according to your comments and suggestions. The pointwise replies are given here in the response file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The article presents research on the assessment of the possibility of using Incineration bottom ash as a partial replacement for fine aggregate in cement mortars. For this purpose, selected properties of mortars were examined, such as: compressive strength, SEM-BSE, XRD, MIP, and TCLP. The article, however, requires some clarification and corrections Below are the comments.

Materials:

• What strength class is the cement used? Such information should be written in the text.
• Line 83-84: „in this study” has been used twice
• Line 84: “5mm” - there is no space between five and the unit. Check the entire manuscript in this regard.
• In the case of cement, the standard is given, while for sand only the reference to the standard. It should be harmonized.
• “IBA” - In this section, the abbreviation should be expanded once again, despite the fact that it was expanded into introduction. This section is about materials, so they need to be defined.

Mix proportions:

• “1:2 ratio of binder to fine aggregate” - It should be written, for example, like this: ““1:2 ratio of binder to aggregate (natural river sand  IBA)”
• Table.2 - The amounts of fine aggregate include, for example, 1,400 [g] - no comma is needed. In some countries the comma is used as a separator and it would appear that only 1.4 g of aggregate was used
• Table 2 – “Water reducer” - Exactly what substance was used?
• Table 2: For which mixture volume are the recipes shown in the table? Such information should be written in the text.

Results and discussion:

• Figure 6 - what do the error bars mean?
• Figure 7 - Please write what the orange bars mean, as it is not clear.
• Line 230 – “Area c” – “c” should be capitalized like the other areas
• The analysis of the compressive strength results relates only to the porosity and the size of the aggregate fraction. Did the authors wonder if the ashes used do not show even minimal pozzolana properties?

Author Response

Respected Reviewer,

Thank you for reviewing our manuscript entitled “Utilization of Municipal Solid Waste Incineration Bottom Ash as Fine Aggregate of Cement Mortars” for possible publication in the journal of “Sustainability”. We are thankful to you for your quick and valuable feedbacks to improve the quality of our manuscript for possible publication in the journal. We have revised the manuscript according to your comments and suggestions. The pointwise replies are given here in the response file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

In this version, after the supplements, the article is very well written. It contains all the necessary elements. The described studies are important and concern aspects of the circular economy.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The reviewer appreciates the effort made by the Authors to improve the English language of their paper. However, the paper still needs extensive linguistic review, which can be done during the editing process. As far as the content is concerned, the document can be accepted as is.