Removal of Dyes from Water Using Aluminum-Based Water Treatment Sludge as a Low-Cost Coagulant: Use of Response Surface Methodology
, Kerroum Derbal 2,*, Ouiem Baatache 2, Cheima Lehchili 2, Amel Khalfaoui 3 and Antonio Pizzi 4Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe aim of this paper is to assess the coagulation performance of aluminum sludge to remove dye from aqueous solution using a set of RSM-based test works. The sludge has been first characterized and then, effect of some operating variables on removal of two dyes have been studied. The concept behind this work is interesting and the paper can be suggested for publication after a deep modification as suggested below:
1. The novelty of your work is using AL sludge not application of RSM. So, esteemed authors must rethink about the title!
2. The style of literature review is not acceptable. You must present the results of relevant work by exploring the findings reported, challenging the scientific and technical gaps in the issue, and finally, CLEARLY state the novelty and necessity of your own work.
3. Methodology has been presented in details. However, the presentation structure is confusing. You do not need to give too many subsections. Moreover, the too many bulletized texts have made your work like a technical report or a course note!
4. Please merge Tables 2 and 3!
5. Please use more representative captions for figures!!!
6. Please improve the quality of figures!!!
7. RSM: so, you must first give the ANOVA result table. Then, show which effects are significant. Then, give the prediction models for both responses as well as evidences of why the models are reliable, i.e., Normal plot, Actual vs Pred. values plot, correlation factors, Adq. Prec., etc. The presentation structure of results needs severe modification and rearrangement!
8. Sections 3.2.1 and 3.2.2 must be the chief part of your paper. Deep discussions on findings in main effect and interaction plots must be given. BIG MISSING!
9. WHY both line and 3D surface plots for interaction effects, i.e., sections 3.2.2 and 3.2.3? Generally, 3D plots are enough!
10. You don’t need to give optimization condition plots! One table would be enough in which you should give both predicted removal as well as experimentally obtained result.
11. Please merge sections 3.3 and 3.4 as something like “Economic assessment”.
Good luck,
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageMinor editing of English language required
Author Response
Response to the Reviewers’ Comments:
I appreciate your reviewing and giving chance to my manuscript to be published in Water Journal. I thank you for the valuable comments on this paper and have made the following adjustments accordingly
NB: All modified and/or added sections are highlighted in yellow color.
Reviewer 01 Comments:
1.Reviewer: The novelty of your work is using AL sludge not application of RSM. So, esteemed authors must rethink about the title!
- Author: The title was changed to: Removal of dyes from water using aluminum-based water treatment sludge as a low-cost coagulant: Use of response surface methodology.
2.Reviewer: The style of literature review is not acceptable. You must present the results of relevant work by exploring the findings reported, challenging the scientific and technical gaps in the issue, and finally, CLEARLY state the novelty and necessity of your own work.
- Author: It was added.
3.Reviewer: Methodology has been presented in details. However, the presentation structure is confusing. You do not need to give too many subsections. Moreover, the too many bulletized texts have made your work like a technical report or a course note!
- Author: It was revised.
4.Reviewer: Please merge Tables 2 and 3!
- Author: Tables 2 and 3 were merged.
5.Reviewer: Please use more representative captions for figures!!!
- Author: The figures captions were revised.
6.Reviewer: Please improve the quality of figures!!!
- Author: It was corrected
7.Reviewer: RSM: so, you must first give the ANOVA result table. Then, show which effects are significant. Then, give the prediction models for both responses as well as evidences of why the models are reliable, i.e., Normal plot, Actual vs Pred. values plot, correlation factors, Adq. Prec., etc. The presentation structure of results needs severe modification and rearrangement!
- Author: The results presentation structure were modified and reorganized.
8.Reviewer: Sections 3.2.1 and 3.2.2 must be the chief part of your paper. Deep discussions on findings in main effect and interaction plots must be given. BIG MISSING!
- Author: It was done.
9.Reviewer: WHY both line and 3D surface plots for interaction effects, i.e., sections 3.2.2 and 3.2.3? Generally, 3D plots are enough!
Author : The diagram of interaction effects (3.2.2 ) were removed.
10.Reviewer: You don’t need to give optimization condition plots! One table would be enough in which you should give both predicted removal as well as experimentally obtained result.
- Author: The plots (Figures 11 and 12) were replaced by a Table 4
11.Reviewer: Please merge sections 3.3 and 3.4 as something like “Economic assessment”.
- Author: The sections 3.3 and 3.4 were merged.
12.Reviewer: Comments on the Quality of English Language
Minor editing of English language required
- Author: The overall manuscript was revised and English was improved
NB: The overall manuscript was revised and English was improved
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis paper describes a method to evaluate dye removal from water via adsorption, although the concept is not new, such content is always of great importance and interest.
The reviewer would like to point out a few things that they hope the author(s) could improve on:
1. Line 272 and 278, the abbreviation (RMB) does not correspond to the test.
2. Some graph, such as the FTIR plot have very low resolution, please replot with higher resulotion.
3. The discussion on Equation 5 and 6 has oversimplified the issue and ignored the middle stage of the reactions. The reviewer feels more details on this section is needed.
Author Response
Response to the Reviewers’ Comments:
I appreciate your reviewing and giving chance to my manuscript to be published in Water Journal. I thank you for the valuable comments on this paper and have made the following adjustments accordingly
NB: All modified and/or added sections are highlighted in yellow color.
Reviewer 02 Comments:
1.Reviewer: Line 272 and 278, the abbreviation (RMB) does not correspond to the test.
- Author: It was corrected.
2.Reviewer: Some graph, such as the FTIR plot have very low resolution, please replot with higher resolution.
- Author: It was done
3.Reviewer: The discussion on Equation 5 and 6 has oversimplified the issue and ignored the middle stage of the reactions. The reviewer feels more details on this section is needed.
- Author: It was done.
NB: The overall manuscript was revised and English was improved
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe article is devoted to the very current global problem of purifying drinking water from contaminants. The article is written in good language, the authors have done significant work on characterizing the sorbent, but the article has a number of shortcomings. To improve the quality of the article, it seems to me that the following changes need to be made.
1. All figures, diagrams and graphs must be presented in high resolution and not as copy-paste.
2. Lines 134, 140, 189 and further, when describing the device, the country of manufacture is usually indicated; as far as I know, shimadzu and hitachi are Japanese companies, even if their production facilities are located in other countries.
3. Line 133, 134 – “In this study, the spectrum (SHIMADZU Code: HI 98713, Schimadzu, Cluj-Napoca, Romania) was used” you must specify the spectrometer model
4. In the tables, it is necessary to uniformly indicate the accuracy of measurement of the given values, or comment on why in some cases PH and mass are measured with an accuracy of units, and in others to thousandths.
5. It would be nice to give the names of the device that measures pH with an accuracy of 0.001
6. line 211, add the word spectrometer,
7. Equation 4 can be written in letter form and describe how the concentration is related to the UV spectrometer.
8. Figure 4, because The authors do not make any conclusions about the size of the granules and pores of the coagulant; it is enough to provide only one drawing at one magnification; the same photographs do not allow one to draw a conclusion about the amorphous structure of the sample; for this it would be necessary to use X-ray diffraction.
9. It would also be nice to provide time dependences of pollutant absorption
10. The conclusions of this work need to be rewritten and made more detailed.
I believe that in general, in terms of the topic and the material presented, the article is suitable for the journal, but requires significant technical and authorial revision.
Author Response
Response to the Reviewers’ Comments:
I appreciate your reviewing and giving chance to my manuscript to be published in Water Journal. I thank you for the valuable comments on this paper and have made the following adjustments accordingly
NB: All modified and/or added sections are highlighted in yellow color.
Reviewer 03 Comments:
1.Reviewer: All figures, diagrams and graphs must be presented in high resolution and not as copy-paste.
- Author: All figures, diagrams and graphs were revised.
2.Reviewer: Lines 134, 140, 189 and further, when describing the device, the country of manufacture is usually indicated; as far as I know, shimadzu and hitachi are Japanese companies, even if their production facilities are located in other countries.
- Author: It was done.
3.Reviewer: Line 133, 134 – “In this study, the spectrum (SHIMADZU Code: HI 98713, Shimadzu, Cluj-Napoca, Romania) was used” you must specify the spectrometer model.
- Author: The spectrometer model was added.
4.Reviewer: In the tables, it is necessary to uniformly indicate the accuracy of measurement of the given values, or comment on why in some cases PH and mass are measured with an accuracy of units, and in others to thousandths.
- Author: It was revised.
5.Reviewer: It would be nice to give the names of the device that measures pH with an accuracy of 0.001
- Author: pH values were measured using a multi-parameter instrument (Jenway model 3540, Cam- lab, Cambridge, United Kingdom). It was added in the text.
6.Reviewer: line 211, add the word spectrometer,
- Author: It was added.
7.Reviewer: Equation 4 can be written in letter form and describe how the concentration is related to the UV spectrometer.
- Author: It was revised.
8.Reviewer: Figure 4, because The authors do not make any conclusions about the size of the granules and pores of the coagulant; it is enough to provide only one drawing at one magnification; the same photographs do not allow one to draw a conclusion about the amorphous structure of the sample; for this it would be necessary to use X-ray diffraction.
- Author: The surface area (SBET), pore volume (Vp) and pore diameter (pd) of AS have been added in the text, but unfortunately we were unable to perform the X-ray diffraction due to a malfunction in the machine and also the lack of it in any accessible alternative laboratory.
9.Reviewer: It would also be nice to provide time dependences of pollutant absorption
- Author: In this study, three times were considered during pollutant absorption (dye removal) by the coagulation-flocculation-settling process. These are the coagulation, flocculation and settling times, set as constants: 3, 20 and 30 minutes, respectively.
10.Reviewer: The conclusions of this work need to be rewritten and made more detailed.
- Author: The conclusions were revised.
NB: The overall manuscript was revised and English was improved
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe paper has been well revised and now, it is suggested for publication. Good luck,
