Thermal Degradation Kinetics of Vacuum Residues in the Presence of Chrysotile Supported Ni-Ti Catalyst
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In the present work, the author studied the thermokinetic parameters of the vacuum residues decomposition with or without catalyst. Various characterization methods were used to investigate the properties of the catalysts. The results are interest, however, there are some issues need to be addressed before it published.
1. What kinds of catalyst were widely used in thermal decomposition of vacuum residue? Why chrysotile with active metals are used in the present work? The author need to discuss these aspects in the introduction.
2. The curves in Figure 1 and 2 need to be put in a same figure. And the standard XRD pattern should be gave in the bottom of the figure.
3. In Figure 5, it is not enough to use three point to fit a curve which will lead to a huge deviation. Five points even more are needed.
Some spell errors need to be corrected.
Author Response
We would like to thank the reviewers for carefully reviewing our article. We respond to the comments put before us. We contributed responses to reviewers' comments to the manuscript. Please also kindly look the report on the changes made in accordance with your recommendations in the attached file.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper studied the kinetics of thermal degradation of vacuum residue in the presence and absence of catalyst. The manuscript is more like a research note rather than a scientific paper, it must be revised substantially before acceptable for publication for the following reasons
1) The abstract need to be contracted to be within 200 words
2) The English writing needs polishing to remove grammar errors
3) SI unit should be used throughout the paper, e.g. cSt should be replaced
4) Section 3 Discussion should be integrated into section 2 Results and Discussion.
5) The activation energy behavior in Fig 6 is abnormal for sample 2, which needs a further explanation
6) The conclusion is too lengthy to be conclusive. At least 50% should be deleted, just leave the scientific conclusion but not the experimental phenomenon conclusion.
The English writing needs polishing to remove grammar errors
Author Response
We would like to thank the reviewers for carefully reviewing our article. We respond to the comments put before us. We contributed responses to reviewers' comments to the manuscript. Please also kindly look the report on the changes made in accordance with your recommendations in the attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The author has addressed all of the issues I mentioned, and it can be published now.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for the attention and recommendations that helped improve the quality of our article.
Respectfully,
Author team
Reviewer 2 Report
This manuscript is not well presented and explained with scientific expression. The English writing is also insufficient in concise and clarity. Further, limited information is provided except three TG curves along with corresponding kinetic modelling. Other suggestions are as follows
1) in the context, the result should be explained in terms of the difference of three samples, rather than sample 1, sample 2, and sample 3
2) Fig 5 a-c can be integrated into one; Fig 1 a-b can be combined into one also
3) the abnormal behavior of active energy in Fig 5 a ( alpha=0.1-0.3) and Fig 5b is not explained rationally.
4) The sentence in line 169-174 is too long to understand
5) the sentence need a revision "Many researches [15-19] have been conducted to study the composition, properties 61 and structure of heavy oil residues."
6) The writing in line 209-218 is unclear and incorrect in grammar
The English writing needs a major revison
Author Response
We would like to thank the Reviewer for carefully reviewing the manuscript. In accordance with your recommendations, we have made the following changes:
Based on your recommendation, we combined all three figures in one Figure 5. We believe that Figure 1 is best left in the format of two figures a-b, since if they are combined into one, some parts of them could merge and they will be difficult to read. In Table 3 and combined Figure 5 we made changes. We revised the calculations of the activation energy values, because in the initial version, the calculation of the activation energy was carried out without taking into account the entire section of the TG curve from 300 to 480оС. And in the revised version, we took into account the entire section of the TG curve from 108 to 572 °C for the thermal decomposition of the original vacuum residue (sample 1). For sample 2 in the initial version, calculation was carried out for a certain section of the TG curve from 300 to 460 оС. And in the revised version, for the entire section of the TG curve starting from 100 to 580 °Ð¡. The reason why we took in the first version such a narrow section on the TG curve, because in this section there was a maximum loss of the vacuum residue mass. And for sample 3, there were no changes in the activation energy calculation in Table 3, since we looked at the entire section of the TG curve. In the discussion, we made changes and compared the activation energy values of the three samples with the change in conversion rate.
Sentences in lines 169-174, lines 61-62 ("Many researches [15-19] have been...") and lines 209-218 have been corrected. In addition, we turned to a philologist who carefully studied the text and corrected it.
Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report
The English writing is much improved, the manuscript is acceptable now.
minor revision is required
