Simulation of Slag–Matte/Metal Equilibria for Complex and Low-Grade Raw Materials

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors study the smelting of lean and complex raw materials, that is a sizable and complex issue where the metal value recoveries and elimination of harmful elements in a controlled way, may involve contradictory requirements and boundary conditions.

This manuscript is labelled as a "mini review", but there is 35% of references being self-citations. Maybe a better way to call it is self-review?

I believe that this manuscript should be edited extensively to address the following issues:

1. The number of self-citations in a review cannot approach 5%, otherwise the authors should have a very clear explanation in the introduction how and why they have been pioneers in the field, which by the way is really old. So, please increase dramatically the number of references to other authors, including other reviews on the subject.
2. The whole review is mainly focused on the MTOX database. No reference is provided for the database itself, is it not public? How is it different from other available databases, such as AFLOW or Materials Project? The authors should comment and associate this database to modern research in materials informatics, including citing recent papers and reviews on the subject.
3. My understanding is that MTOX is a collection of calphad calculations for phase diagrams. This is nice, but there are multiple other calphad libraries, like the NIST one. The authors should comment and associate their database to other available ones.
4. Line 70, please change page when starting a new section.
5. Lines 52-56: The authors should describe precisely the contents of the paper, including all sections.
6. Section 3 should be extended significantly to include other available databases on the subject, including comparisons to MTOX.
7. All the images have very small fonts that need to increase.
8. Fig.3 should be motivated in a more consistent manner.
9. The authors should include case studies from other groups, using other databases.

Author Response

Please see the attached file.

The authors thank the reviewer for their valuable comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper introduces the use of constrained phase equilibria of multi-component industrial systems in the process analysis. Detailed comments and suggestions are given below.

1. This paper does not like a review. It would be better to remove "a mini review" in the title.
2. The figures in this paper are not so clear, it would be better to use high-resolution figures. 

Author Response

Please see the attached file.

The authors thank the reviewer for their valuable comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Thermodynamic properties of phases and phase equilibria are the key to the analysis of pyrometallurgical processes.This paper's starting point and idea is interesting, and the method has been confirmed and elaborated. I think this paper fits well with the scope of the journal. The following are the minor comments and suggestions on this manuscript.

 

 

1、The “Abstract” section should briefly introduce the overall situation of the paper. I suggest that it be revised.

 

2、Figure 1 is not very clear. I suggest drawing it in color.

3、The abscissa of Figure 2 and Figure 3 should be formatted in the same way.

4、Lines of 132-133：The sentence of  “It limits the ‘distance’ from oxygen saturation of the Cu-O system, as indicated in Fig. 1 with the dotted line” is confused.

5、Figure 4 is not very clear. I suggest that some areas in the image that are not clear can be enlarged locally.

Author Response

Please see the attached file.

The authors thank the reviewer for their valuable comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors clearly refused to take into account the comments and work on their manuscript, so that they actually perform a contribution in the community. The idea that their database (mtox) is unique and quintessential appears delusional, but if not, then the authors need to clearly justify how it has been recognized in this unique spot. To my limited view, I see nothing unique, apart from performing additional fine-tuning to match particular phase diagrams. Several figures are still completely unreadable.