Investigation on the Urban Grey Water Treatment Using a Cost-Effective Solar Distillation Still

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The present article is a study of a cheap and easy-to-operate solar distiller designed for wastewater distillation. The topic of the article is relevant and may be of interest to specialists and researchers in the fields of solar energy and the optimal use of resources. The article provides the design of the module, the calculation of its cost and the cost of the water received, the authors present the dependences of various parameters, however, as comments and recommendations, several points should be noted:

1. Is it possible to scale the performance of the developed module, since the developed module is small in size?

2. PSSG1 should be deciphered for general understanding. Also, all abbreviations used at the first mention should be deciphered.

3. What is formed after the distillation of water inside the distiller itself? How is a solar distiller cleaned? How often should it be done? What is the cost of such a service? What is the lifespan of a distiller?

4. Is it possible to drink the water received by the authors? Is there any additional processing and addition of minerals and elements? How safe is this water to drink? Is a water temperature of 48 degrees enough for high-quality water disinfection? Are harmful microorganisms killed at this temperature? Are there ways to increase the temperature in the proposed device? As an option for additional disinfection, it is possible to recommend the use of photovoltaic thermal modules for heating and reheating from electricity the water (for example, DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-3867-7.ch004) however, an economic calculation is needed here (performance will be higher, however, the cost of the module will also increase) - perhaps the authors will indicate this direction in the "Directions for further research".

5. The authors should also add a subsection "Directions for further research", where they should indicate where and how they plan to use the results obtained and what further work the authors plan to carry out.

6. Authors are encouraged to add formulas and calculations based on them to the content of the article to improve its scientific component.

7. Why was the layer height 1 cm and not more or less?

8. What conclusions can be drawn from Table 2 and Table 7, as well as from Figure 8 and Figure 9? The description of Figure 5 should be placed in the article before Figure 5 itself. The caption for Figure 8 at line 328 should be edited.

9. Authors are encouraged to use more recent publications in this field in international high-ranking journals, and reduce the number of relatively old publications in the list of sources used.

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The background of the idea is interesting and may be developed. But now the paper is based on 3 exparimental samples. Such paper cannot be published. 
Authors shoud take tests every month and min. 1 year. Notice differences along the time. 
How such experiment may be used in wider scale?

Authors should continue experiments.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The review comments for the manuscript, 'Investigation on the urban grey water treatment using a cost-effective solar distillation still', are given below,

1. The authors presented PSSG1, a low cost solar still for urban grey water. The work is interesting and presented well, still it needs an improvement for betterment.

2. Do not club the references, each and every reference needs a proper justification and citation. Kindly improve the introduction part.

3. References also need to be updated, I suggest the following, 10.1016/j.desal.2017.11.007, 10.1016/j.enconman.2018.05.011

4. Add the organization of the manuscript at the end of Introduction Section.

5. What is the area of base of PSSG1? Need to give detailed explanation on 2.1.

6. Error analysis also to be included in the figure 7, 8, 9.

7. What will be the estimated life span of PSSG1?

8. Abstract and conclusion must be precise and brief, remove the known facts.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Reviewer 1:

I recommend this manuscript with major corrections.

General comments:

After reviewing the manuscript entitled “Investigation on the urban grey water treatment using a cost-effective solar distillation still”. The work carried out on this research is interesting which is based on examining the treatment of grey water originating from one of the typical urban areas in Malaysia by using a low-cost polythene film cover double slope solar still, namely PSSG1, with 1 cm water depth in its black painted stainless steel trough in order to evaluate the amount of freshwater production. However, the manuscript needs a thorough revision of its language and style. Avoid redundancies and keep it short. What are the research gaps in this paper?  There must be a gap addressed by this work as well. This justifies the contribution of this paper. Please highlight the significance of addressing the gaps. The innovation and the importance of this work are not clearly highlighted in the abstract, introduction, and conclusions. Please work on this and prove to us why this work is valuable. The journal's author guidelines and instructions should be followed in preparing the revised version.

Detailed comments:

Title: Looks ok.

Abstract:

In the abstract, please add an indication of the achievements from your study that are relevant to the journal scope. Please be concise - maximum 1-2 lines. The abstract does not work well. A good abstract should address these issues: what are you trying to do, why, what you found, and what is the significance of your findings.

Introduction:

The introduction section, should follow the state of the art in this field and review what has been done, for supporting the research gap and the significance of this study. Please improve the state-of-the-art overview, to clearly show the progress beyond the state of the art. The lack of proper justification creates the wrong impression that the authors are unaware of the recent developments. Please use relevant recent references by OTHER authors, recent meaning from 2018 - 2022. At the end of the introduction, the statement of the paper’s goal and the explanation of novelty has to be properly formulated. Currently, this is not performed well. A high-quality paper has to provide a proper state-of-the-art analysis after the literature review and only based on the analysis to formulate the paper’s goals.

Each section must have a new idea from the authors or very good critical and comparison. The current version is more and less like only reports or gathering literature. The relevant reference may be of interest to the author according below:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213138822000790

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016236122000709

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/4/1985

Materials and Methods:

Figures 3,4,5 can be removed. It is general information. Also, a schematic diagram of the procedures is recommended in the Methods Section. Please add in the beginning your scientific hypothesis. In the course of describing the performed actions, please provide reader guidance, sufficient for understanding why those actions have been performed.

Results and Discussion:

The structure of this work should be reorganized. For example, Section of results should be combined with the Discussion. The authors are suggested to have the results and discussion part together. All the obtained results need to discuss along with the findings of other researchers. In the current form, it is not seen to be. In the section Discussion, when discussing with results, the authors should improve the logic to make it readable.                                                                        

Conclusions:

The conclusion is lengthy. Authors should try to highlight the major findings. Original and unique contribution explicit in and quantified the Conclusions (this should not be another Abstract). Please make sure your conclusions section underscores the scientific value-added of your paper, and/or the applicability of your findings/results. Highlight the novelty of your study.

References:

The reference style should follow the journal guidelines. References should update with the recent references.

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

Reviewer Reports:

 

I have reviewed the revised version manuscript entitled” Investigation on the urban grey water treatment using a cost-effective solar distillation still”. The work is interesting and it falls within the scope of the journal. The paper has been improved and can be accepted.