A New Thioalkalivibrio sp. Strain Isolated from Petroleum-Contaminated Brackish Estuary Sediments: A New Candidate for Bio-Based Application for Sulfide Oxidation in Halo-Alkaline Conditions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors present on the isolation and description of a new halo-alkine bacterial strain towards H2S scrubbing applications. The authors are very thorough with the characterization of the strain's genomic traits, the growth patterns of the strain against various pH and saline conditions, and the strain's oxidation performance towards hydrogen sulfide. Although the presentation of the content is concise and commendable, there are a few grammatical errors towards the beginning of the test that need to be addressed. After minor corrections made (based on the suggestions provided below), the manuscript is recommended for publication.

Needs consistency between "sulfur" and "sulphur" throughout manuscript
Line 16: missing hyphen "sulfur-oxidizing"
Line 20: "was capable of growth in saline concentrations up to 1.5 M Na+"
Line 32: either "In a strongly antopised environment," or "In strongly antopised environments,"
Line 35: "chemical and/or physical"
Line 37: "contaminated matrices can be a source"
Line 38: "applications in the abatement"
Line 39: unnecessary comma after "matrices"; "have already been a source"
Line 40: "applications"
Line 43: missing hyphen "petroleum-derived"
Line 54: no need for commas "characterized by pH up to 10 and high sodium"
Line 60: "capable of oxidizing H2S"
Line 62 "applications"
Line 65: "and might also update"
Line 102: Maybe change "MLSA" to "MLS" since other references only use "MLS"
Figure 3 is not as clear as Figure 4, same with Figures 5 and 6

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, 

we want to thanks for your help in the improvement of the quality of the manuscript. We strictly followed your indications and made the necessary corrections as you can see in yellow in the new version of the manuscript

Line 16: missing hyphen "sulfur-oxidizing"
Line 20: "was capable of growth in saline concentrations up to 1.5 M Na+"
Line 32: either "In a strongly antopised environment," or "In strongly antopised environments,"
Line 35: "chemical and/or physical"
Line 37: "contaminated matrices can be a source"
Line 38: "applications in the abatement"
Line 39: unnecessary comma after "matrices"; "have already been a source"
Line 40: "applications"
Line 43: missing hyphen "petroleum-derived"
Line 54: no need for commas "characterized by pH up to 10 and high sodium"
Line 60: "capable of oxidizing H2S"
Line 62 "applications"
Line 65: "and might also update"

ALL THE ABOVE MENTIONED MODIFICATIONS WERE INSERTED

Line 102: Maybe change "MLSA" to "MLS" since other references only use "MLS"

THANKS CORRECTED

Figure 3 is not as clear as Figure 4, same with Figures 5 and 6

THANKS THE QUALITY OF THE FIGURES WAS IMPROVED

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript titled "A new Thioalkalivibrio sp. strain isolated from brackish estuary sediments: a new candidate for bio-based application for sulphide oxidation in halo-alkaline conditions." is well written. The following issues were identified:

1. review for grammar and typos
2. in the abstract, consider changing the obsolete word "captation" for a more modern work
3. Also, consider adjusting the topic subject to word count requirements to: A new Thioalkalivibrio sp. strain isolated from petroleum-contaminated brackish estuary sediments: a new candidate for bio-based application for sulphide oxidation in halo-alkaline conditions.
4. Please provide details for the analytical procedure and instrumentation for the sediment characteristics e.g petroleum hydrocarbon analysis
5. Improve the readability of Fig. 1.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, 

we want to thanks for your help in the improvement of the quality of the manuscript. We strictly followed your indications and made the necessary corrections as you can see in yellow in the new version of the manuscript.

1. review for grammar and typos

We revised the manuscript and revised as many typos we found, you can see the result in yellow in the new version of the manuscript

2. in the abstract, consider changing the obsolete word "captation" for a more modern work

Done

3. Also, consider adjusting the topic subject to word count requirements to: A new Thioalkalivibrio sp. strain isolated from petroleum-contaminated brackish estuary sediments: a new candidate for bio-based application for sulphide oxidation in halo-alkaline conditions.

Done

4. Please provide details for the analytical procedure and instrumentation for the sediment characteristics e.g petroleum hydrocarbon analysis

the Material and Method section was improved

5. Improve the readability of Fig. 1.

Done

Reviewer 3 Report

General comment:

The authors describe the classification of a new halo-alkaline sulphur oxidising bacterial strain which was isolated from brackish estuary sediments contaminated by petroleum hydrocarbons. These bacteria are able to grow at higher pH values (up to pH 10) and Na⁺ concentrations (up to 1,5 M). Therefore, they seem to be suitable for industrial applications (e. g. for the recovery of alkaline scrubber for H₂S emission abatement).

The following issues should be discussed and added:

• Page 4, line 162 and page 10, line 250: Sulphide (in the text: “sulphide concentration”) or Hydrogensulphide (in the text: “1 mM to 2.5 mM HS^-“)?
• Page 7, line 217: The phrase “One operon of rRNA genes were retrieved...” is incomprehensible and should be reworded or explained.
• Page 8, line 225 – 228: A uniform name should be used. “[Na⁺] concentration” or “Na⁺ concentration”.
• Page 9, Figure 3: The image seems blurry (Figure 4 is much better) and should be improved.
• Page 9: Overlap between Figure 4 and text. Lines 237 – 239 are covered by Figure 4.
• Page 10, Figure 5: The image seems blurry and should be improved.
• Page 11, Figure 6: The image seems blurry and should be improved.
• Page 12, Table 5: Table heading instead of table caption.
• Page 14, lines 384/385: The statement “...thiosulfate and sulfide oxidation to elemental sulphur...” is not quite correct. Sulphur in thiosulfate has the oxidation number +5 resp. -1, elemental sulphur has the oxidation number 0. Therefore the term “oxidation” is only true for one sulphur atom.

Furthermore, there are a number of errors that should be corrected. The text contains a number of mistakes and missing blank spaces (e. g. between value and unit). So in the final analysis, a major revision of the entire manuscript is needed.

The specific comments are summarized in the attached pdf file “Specific comments_water-790189”.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, 

we want to thanks for your help in the improvement of the quality of the manuscript. We strictly followed your indications and made the necessary corrections as you can see in yellow in the new version of the manuscript

• Page 4, line 162 and page 10, line 250: Sulphide (in the text: “sulphide concentration”) or Hydrogensulphide (in the text: “1 mM to 2.5 mM HS^-“)?
•  
• Page 7, line 217: The phrase “One operon of rRNA genes were retrieved...” is incomprehensible and should be reworded or explained
•  
• corrected, thanks
•  
• Page 8, line 225 – 228: A uniform name should be used. “[Na⁺] concentration” or “Na⁺concentration”.

corrected

• Page 9, Figure 3: The image seems blurry (Figure 4 is much better) and should be improved.

improved

• Page 9: Overlap between Figure 4 and text. Lines 237 – 239 are covered by Figure 4.

separated

• Page 10, Figure 5: The image seems blurry and should be improved.

improved

• Page 11, Figure 6: The image seems blurry and should be improved.

improved

• Page 12, Table 5: Table heading instead of table caption.

corrected

• Page 14, lines 384/385: The statement “...thiosulfate and sulfide oxidation to elemental sulphur...” is not quite correct. Sulphur in thiosulfate has the oxidation number +5 resp. -1, elemental sulphur has the oxidation number 0. Therefore the term “oxidation” is only true for one sulphur atom.

corrected many thanks

Furthermore, there are a number of errors that should be corrected. The text contains a number of mistakes and missing blank spaces (e. g. between value and unit). So in the final analysis, a major revision of the entire manuscript is needed.

The specific comments are summarized in the attached pdf file “Specific comments_water-790189”.

All the changes, many (thanks) were inserted and should be all in yellow in the new manuscript

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

From my point of view the authors have answered most of the questions sufficiently and have also taken the comments of the reviewers into consideration in most cases. Overall, this led to an improvement of the article. So in the final analysis, the reviewed article seems to be suitable for publication.

There are only two minor errors that should be corrected:

Page 2 (2. Materials and Methods) line 78: “...Florisil^® columns...” instead of “...Florisil ®columns...”.

Page 2 (2. Materials and Methods) line 90: “(pH = 7.2)” instead of “(pH=7.2)”.