Development of a Self-Sustaining Wastewater Treatment with Phosphorus Recovery for Small Rural Settlements
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Interesting paper - most of the changes are needed in the introduction.
Introduction has too much experimental information. It should have background, literature review and study objectives.
Line. 38 treatment offers new solutions, including natural close treatment technologies and
41 separation at household level. The treatment of the grey water, which is only slightly contaminated
42 with nutrients, can be carried out with less effort and simpler technologies than the treatment of domestic sewage foul
43 water.
49 discharged into a central WWTP or not addressed at all, which hinders to close the entire wastewater
50 treatment process chain on side.
Lines 51 to 76 Remove the entire paragraph. Move description of study site to Materials and Methods section.
Lines 110 to 117 Remove the entire paragraph.
132 Thus, for the Reinighof another option was developed and investigated, based on the treatment of
133 the ammonium-rich supernatant.
Lines 137 to 145. Remove all starting with However, there has been no ….
146 The aim was to develop an effective and stable P-recovery process as part of a self-sustaining
147 wastewater system. The effect of operating parameters on P-recovery via struvite precipitation and ammonia removal were
148 investigated, in order to find a standardized and easy operation mode for local people.
Lines 148 to 151. Remove all starting with Furthermore, ….
- Materials and Methods
Add in a section to describe the community of Reinighof and why it was a good, representative community to demonstrate the application of this new technology to other small, rural communities.
- Conclusions – an important error was noted. The study showed P- recovery and ammonia removal. It DID NOT show nitrogen removal.
This resource-oriented-sanitation system leads to an efficient phosphorus
342 recovery and ammonia nitrogen removal.
Author Response
Dear Editor of Journal Sustainability,
Thank you and the reviewers for the time and efforts spend on our manuscript. We find the reviewers’ comments reasonable and were able to address most of them and thereby improve the manuscript.
Please find our point-by point response (marked in red) to all reviewers’ comments in the attachment.
Any amendments and/or additions to the text are highlighted in yellow and a version of the revised manuscript with ‘changes-tracking’ is attached separately.
A clean version of the revised manuscript is also added.
I hope we managed to address in a fully satisfactory manner all reviewers’ comments and believe that this improved greatly the quality of our manuscript.
We hope you will publish our paper in the Journal Sustainability after this revision. We look forward to your decision.
Sincerely yours,
Jingsi Xiao
(On behalf of all co-authors)
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper was revised according to the journal.
The main results achieved showed how the decentralized wastewater treatment is self-sufficient, and the manuscript deserves to be considered for publication.
Few revisions are required and they are reported below:
- please add a nomenclature list with unit of measures
- a graphical abstract should be added
- try to check and correct structure of the paper, few errors should be corrected... see for example pag.7 line 247 and 245, etc...
- please add all details for instruments used in section 2
- if the correlation is too low between conductivity and phosphorous concentration and the magnesium needed is not determined with this method, how it should be dosed?
Author Response
Dear Editor of Journal Sustainability,
Thank you and the reviewers for the time and efforts spend on our manuscript. We find the reviewers’ comments reasonable and were able to address most of them and thereby improve the manuscript.
Please find our point-by point response (marked in red) to all reviewers’ comments in the attachment.
Any amendments and/or additions to the text are highlighted in yellow and a version of the revised manuscript with ‘changes-tracking’ is attached separately.
A clean version of the revised manuscript is also added.
I hope we managed to address in a fully satisfactory manner all reviewers’ comments and believe that this improved greatly the quality of our manuscript.
We hope you will publish our paper in the Journal Sustainability after this revision. We look forward to your decision.
Sincerely yours,
Jingsi Xiao
(On behalf of all co-authors)
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The new, revised research objective statement is unclear. The original statement from their first draft, with my suggested edit, was much better.
Remove line 153 to 156.
Insert instead their original objective statement. Here is a slightly more concise statement to use.
"The aim of this research was to develop an effective and stable P-recovery process as a part of a self-sustaining, small community wastewater system. The effect of operating parameters on P-recovery via struvite precipitation were investigated to find a standardized and easy operation mode for local people."
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for further revision comment.
Point 1:The new, revised research objective statement is unclear. The original statement from their first draft, with my suggested edit, was much better.
Remove line 153 to 156.
Insert instead their original objective statement. Here is a slightly more concise statement to use.
"The aim of this research was to develop an effective and stable P-recovery process as a part of a self-sustaining, small community wastewater system. The effect of operating parameters on P-recovery via struvite precipitation were investigated to find a standardized and easy operation mode for local people."
Response 1: The research objective statement is replaced by the original statement with the reviewers' suggestion.
Sincerely yours,
Jingsi Xiao
(On behalf of all co-authors)
