Comprehensive Utilization of Mineral Resources: Optimal Blending of Polymetallic Ore Using an Improved NSGA-III Algorithm
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper is very well written, and contributes a novel optimization method for ore blending optimization problem, which can obtain satisfactory optimization results. By constructing a multi-objective ore blending model and proposing a CM-NSGA-III optimization method, the grade fluctuation of various minerals in the associated ore blending can be reduced to less than 5%. It will help to save beneficiation costs and increase the recovery rate of beneficiation, and promote the sustainable development of mining. The paper fit the theme in Sustainability and are suitable for publication. But there are some problems, which must be solved before it is considered for publication.
Comment1# The CM-NSGA-III algorithm is improved by NSGA-III, so it is suggested to provide the comparative experimental results obtained by the NSGA-III algorithm and analyze the results.
Commet2# The text on the pictures in the paper is not clear enough, such as Figure 5, Figure 6.
Commet3# The language of the paper is not concise enough and needs to be improved, for example, line246-247. It is not the focus topic of the paper and can be simplified.
Author Response
Dear reviewer:
Thank you for your decision and constructive comments on my manuscript. We have carefully considered the suggestion of the reviewer and made some changes. A point-by-point response to your comments has been uploaded in a word file. We hope you will receive it. Thank you very much for your help.
Best wishes to you！
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Ore blending is the important tasks in medium and short-term production scheduling optimization in metal mine mining. It extends the ore reserve base by utilization of low-grade ore, minimizing the need for selective mining hence reducing mining costs and increasing mine production, contributing to the grade control process to increase the recovery rate of the ore dressing. The paper proposes a new CM-NSGA-III optimization algorithm for polymetallic ore blending schedule optimization. It is suitable for the topic of Sustainability and published. However, there are still some problems.
Problem 1: The abstract is not well written and needs to be revised.
Problem 2: In the figure 1, the first letter of the sentence should be capitalized.
Problem 3: In section 4.4, the conversion frequency p = 0.2 is it obtained through testing or is there a standard?
Problem 4: Figure 5 is not clear enough.
Problem 5: From the analysis results of the case, we already know that the CM-NSGA-III has achieved excellent results in solving the ore blending optimization model. However, the CM-NSGA-III algorithm is improved by NSGA-III algorithm, so should the author consider adding the calculation results of the NSGA-III algorithm to enhance persuasion?
Author Response
Dear reviewer:
Thank you for your decision and constructive comments on my manuscript. We have carefully considered the suggestion of the reviewer and made some changes. A point-by-point response to your comments has been uploaded in a word file. We hope you will receive it. Thank you very much for your help.
Best wishes to you！
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
1. The language needs to be improved to make the expression more rigorous, for example, the use of “ore dressing” and “beneficiation”, “A multi-objective ore blending mathematical model for polymetallic mine is established” in line 51 is revised as “for polymetallic ore” or “for polymetallic mineral” will be more appropriate.
2. The format of the formula is not uniform, for example, the multiplication sign of formula 1,9 10 is “.”, but in formula 3, 4 is “*”.
3. What is the full name of ASF abbreviation in 4.2?
4. How the results in Table 5 were selected? Can be described in detail?
5. Figure 4, 5, 6 are not clear enough.
6. The influence of percentage of different types of ore on beneficiation is considered in this paper, and will be taken as one of the objective functions. Can you introduce how different types of ore affect the quality of beneficiation?
7. The objective function formula (2) has parameters ( ) representing the target percentage of different types of rocks, but the values of relevant parameters are not given in the case study of Part 5.
8. Please explain which part of the cm-nsga-iii algorithm the reference point generation method used in this paper belongs to. And figure 1 cannot reflect the three-dimensional spatial characteristics like Figure 4.
9. What do the colors in the geological 3D model in FIG. 2 (a) represent?It is not clearly marked or explained.
10.The description of experimental data in Section 5.1 is incomplete, and the parameters related to trucks and f shovels are not introduced.
11. As can be seen from FIG. 5, all the 84 ore matching schemes obtained in the paper have good performance, and the differences are very small. Could you explain the reason for this phenomenon?
12. In the discussion section, only two sentences are used to describe the shortcomings of the methods used by other literatures (such as references 15,6,12,29,42,43) to prove that the optimization method proposed in this paper is superior and slightly insufficient. Should a comparative experiment be added to highlight the superiority of the proposed optimization method?
13. The logic of the conclusion is not clear enough, and the focus should be to summarize the optimization method proposed in this paper and describe its effect.
Author Response
Dear reviewer:
Thank you for your constructive comments on my manuscript. We have carefully considered the suggestion of the reviewer and made some changes. A point-by-point response to your comments has been uploaded in a word file. We hope you will receive it. Thank you very much for your help.
Best wishes to you！
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
The paper proposes a multi-objective evolutionary optimization algorithm based on the NSGA-III classical evolutionary technique to solve the problem of blending polymetallic ore for the purpose of making the grade of various metals in the ore reach the quality required by the processing plant.
The idea of the paper is good. However, the paper needs to be improved.
1) All the abbreviations need to be defined. For instance, the paper is mentioning NSGA-III, CM-NSGA, and ASF but no definition of these abbreviations is presented before.
2) Normalization section is too short for making it a separate section. You can incorporate it in the previous section.
3) It is required to explain the purpose of each section before explaining the equations because the purpose of each section is unclear.
3) The steps of the algorithms are explained in separated sections and the purpose of each step is unclear. I suggest making a flow chart or a diagram that presents the steps of the proposed algorithm before starting to explain each step. This way the reader can have a full understanding of the steps of the algorithm and can follow the details of each step of the algorithm in the sections.
4) The English of the paper must be improved. There are many sentences that are not complete or are incorrectly formed which makes some statements difficult to understand.
Examples:
it seems to take more attention to the cost or profit because most of the established optimization models are considered the quality of ore blending as constraints and the cost or profit as the optimizing objective
> are considering
Constraints (6), (7), (8), (9), and (10) are represented the production capacity for loading points (or mining faces), crushing, stockpiling, shovel and truck.
> are presenting
Constraint (11) ensures that the quantity of ore willing to transport from the i-th loading point (or mining face) to the j-th unloading point (crushing station or stockpiling station).
>This sentence is incorrect or incomplete.
Due to the random crossover and mutation are used in the NSGA-III cannot guarantee the generation of high-quality offspring, a novel NSGA-III is proposed, named as CM-NSGA-III.
>This sentence is understandable and grammatically incorrect.
Those are just examples. There are several sentences that are grammatically incorrect or incomplete. It is recommended to correct the English of the paper with the aid of an English native speaker.
Author Response
Dear reviewer:
Thank you for your constructive comments on my manuscript. We have carefully considered the suggestion of the reviewer and made some changes. A point-by-point response to your comments has been uploaded in a word file. We hope you will receive it. Thank you very much for your help.
Best wishes to you！
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 4 Report
The author addressed all comments and the paper has been improved.
