Flotation Performance and Adsorption Mechanism of a Novel Chelating Collector for Azurite

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Revise the manuscript on English usage and grammar. For example: 

1. line 67. put forward; 
2. mL should be ml throughout the paper;
3. line 105, it writes "1 min", but "3 min" in Figure 1; 
4. line 106, "after turn on the air supply".
5. many other similar problems throughout the manuscript. 

For bare azurite, in Table 1, S% is 0.53%; however, in Figure 12, S% is 0%. It needs to be consistent.

For figure 11, it will be better and more convincing to show the SEM images of a same azurite plate/particle before and after it contacts chemicals.

Author Response

亲爱的编辑和审稿人#1：

Thank you for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Flotation performance and adsorption mechanism of a novel chelating collector to azurite” (Ms. Ref. No.: Minerals-1637485). Those comments are valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, and provide the important guiding significance to our studies. We have studied the comments carefully and have made corrections, which we hope to meet with approval. These revised portions are marked in red in the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the response to your comments are as follows:

1. Revise the manuscript on English usage and grammar.

    Response: Thank you very much for this valuable suggestion. We have revised the English usage and grammar in the manuscript.

2. Line 67: “put forward”.

    Response: Thank you very much for this valuable suggestion. We have edited the English usage and grammar on lines 76-82, and replace “put forward” with “had proposed”.

3. Line 105: it writes “1 min”, but “3 min” in Figure 2.

    Response: We're so sorry for the mistake that pictures and texts being inconsistent due to our carelessness. Then we redraw Figure 2 and improved it’s quality.

4. Line 106: “after turn on the air supply”.

    Response: We replace “after turning on the air supply” with “after turning on the inflation switch”.

5. For bare azurite, in Table 1, S% is 0.53%; however, in Figure 12, S% is 0%. It needs to be consistent.

     Response: Thank you very much for this valuable suggestion. We have corrected the S% in Figure 12. Due to the different detection instruments used in XPS analysis and FE-SEM analysis, there are certain differences in S%. In addition, Figure 12 has been corrected to Figure 11.

6. For Figure 11, it will be better and more convincing to show the SEM images of a same azurite plate/particle before and after it contacts chemicals.

     Response: Thank you very much for this valuable suggestion. Firstly, samples were fully mixed before testing with good representativeness. Secondly, due to the test samples being consumed in the scanning electron microscopy tests, it is impossible to show the same SEM images of azurite particles before and after contact with the agent, but the SEM images provided can show that the agent CDDP is adsorbed on the surface of azurite in a vein shape, indicating that azurite interacted with CDDP. At last, Figure 11 has been corrected to Figure 10.

We appreciate you editors/reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the corrections will meet with your approval.

Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

Yours sincerely,

Bo Hu.

Email: hb20202228@136.com

State Key Laboratory of Complex Nonferrous Metal Resources Clean Utilization, Faculty of Metallurgical and Energy Engineering,

Kunming, China.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Firstly, the English needs significant improvement.  For example, it is froth flotation, not foam!  The sentence construction is poor, and often difficult to understand.

What is vulcanising in the context of a flotation reagent?  It is not clear.

Last time I looked hematite was not a copper oxide mineral.

What do you mean by "setting about for 5 minutes" . . . this is poor expression.  And what does "purified by ultrasonic" mean?  Do you mean that the sample was de-slimed? 

From a technical stand point I am sure you have completed a series of tests that identify that you are using a reasonably pure sample of azurite.  I would like to see a chemical analysis not just a XRD trace.

How many flotation tests did you complete for each condition?  Can you add the error bars please?

This gives some confidence in the result.  The standard method employed industrially to recovery copper oxide minerals is by sulphidisation, so all your CDDP tests should be compared to this standard.  You do make this comparison in the microflotation work, but the rest don't show these results.  The XPS shows azurite and azurite+CDDP, which is only part of the story.  The XPS survey spectra really don't add any value, the individual for copper sulphur and oxygen do.

Are your discussion points your conclusion?  Perhaps you should call it conclusion then.

I don't think the FESEM-EDS analysis add value.  The SEM images all look nominally the same before and after CDDP is added.  The EDS spectra much the same, with the table of numbers in each unreadable.

Author Response

Dear Editors and Reviewer #2：

Thank you for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Flotation performance and adsorption mechanism of a novel chelating collector to azurite” (Ms. Ref. No.: Minerals-1637485). Those comments are valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, and provide the important guiding significance to our studies. We have studied the comments carefully and have made corrections, which we hope to meet with approval. These revised portions are marked in red in the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the response to your comments are as follows:

1. Firstly, the English needs significant improvement. For example, it is froth flotation, not foam! The sentence construction is poor, and often difficult to understand.

Response: Thank you very much for this valuable suggestion .We have revised the English usage and grammar in the manuscript, For example, We replace “froth flotation” with “foam flotation”.

2. What is vulcanising in the context of a flotation reagent?

Response: We are very sorry for this unclear expression. What we want to express is: For copper oxide minerals, the common method is to pre-sulfide the minerals with sodium sulfide, and then use collectors to collect the minerals.

3. Last time I looked hematite was not a copper oxide mineral.

Response: We are very sorry for this wrong expression, we have replaced "hematite" in line 78 of the manuscript with "chalcopyrite".

4. What do you mean by “setting about for 5 minutes”.

Response: We are very sorry for this unclear expression, and we have revised the incorrect content, and modify it to "set 5 minutes".

5. what does "purified by ultrasonic" mean? Do you mean that the sample was de-slimed?

Response: Using "purified by ultrasonic", there are two main purposes: ① to remove some impurities on the surface of pure minerals, to ensure that the sample is deslimed; ② to ensure that flotation and detection are not affected by impurities.

6. From a technical stand point I am sure you have completed a series of tests that identify that you are using a reasonably pure sample of azurite. I would like to see a chemical analysis not just a XRD trace.

Response: We have added a pure sample of azurite chemical analysis results in 2.1. Materials and reagents. and the results are listed in Table 1.

7. How many flotation tests did you complete for each condition? Can you add the error bars please?

Response: Thank you very much for this valuable suggestion. In each condition, I completed 3 flotation tests, and we have added error bars results in Figure 3 and Figure 4.

8. This gives some confidence in the result. The standard method employed industrially to recovery copper oxide minerals is by sulphidisation, so all your CDDP tests should be compared to this standard. You do make this comparison in the microflotation work, but the rest don't show these results. The XPS shows azurite and azurite+CDDP, which is only part of the story. The XPS survey spectra really don't add any value, the individual for copper sulphur and oxygen do.

Response: In the flotation test, we have compared the effect of CDDP with BHA and NaIX, and the results show that CDDP has better collection effect. So we analyze the mechanism of CDDP in detail in the subsequent part of the paper. In addition, the mechanism of BHA and NaIX has been studied in detail by numerous researchers, such as ref. 31 and ref. 32, so the mechanism of BHA and NaIX has not been described much in this paper. And we have removed the total spectrum and only analyzed the spectrum of copper, sulfur, and oxygen, respectively.

9. Are your discussion points your conclusion?

Response: Actually, the discussions are the conclusion, and we have revised them in line 441 of the article.

10. The SEM images all look nominally the same before and after CDDP is added. The EDS spectra much the same, with the table of numbers in each unreadable. Are your discussion points your conclusion?

Response: Thank you very much for this valuable suggestion. the SEM images we provided can show that the agent CDDP is adsorbed on the surface of azurite in a vein shape, and azurite interacted with CDDP. We have redrawn the EDS spectra and improved their quality.

We appreciate you editors/reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the corrections will meet with your approval.

Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

Yours sincerely,

Bo Hu.

Email: hb20202228@136.com

State Key Laboratory of Complex Nonferrous Metal Resources Clean Utilization, Faculty of Metallurgical and Energy Engineering,

Kunming, China.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

I recommend:

• Given the large number of abbreviations used, a separate list with an explanation of abbreviations at the beginning of the article would be useful.
• The conclusions are missing, so I recommend that they be introduced

Author Response

Dear Editors and Reviewer #3：

Thank you for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Flotation performance and adsorption mechanism of a novel chelating collector to azurite” (Ms. Ref. No.: Minerals-1637485). Those comments are valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, and provide the important guiding significance to our studies. We have studied the comments carefully and have made corrections, which we hope to meet with approval. These revised portions are marked in red in the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the response to your comments are as follows:

1. Given the large number of abbreviations used, a separate list with an explanation of abbreviations at the beginning of the article would be useful.

Response: Thank you very much for this valuable suggestion. We have added full nouns when the abbreviations first appeared.

2. The conclusions are missing, so I recommend that they be introduced.

Response: Thank you very much for this valuable suggestion.Actually, the discussions are the conclusion, and we have revised them in line 441 of the article.

We appreciate you editors/reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the corrections will meet with your approval.

Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

Yours sincerely,

Bo Hu.

Email: hb20202228@136.com

State Key Laboratory of Complex Nonferrous Metal Resources Clean Utilization, Faculty of Metallurgical and Energy Engineering,

Kunming, China.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

This is an improvement on the first draft I reviewed.

I have a few minor comments:

What do the authors mean by vulcanisation?  This is not a term used in flotation that I am aware of.  Is it appropriate?

What do you mean by purification using ultrasonics?  This is not clear.  Do you mean that you deslimed the sample prior to conditioning with reagents?

Finally, I not sure what I should see in Figure 10.  The particles look similar to me.

Author Response

Dear Editors and Reviewer #2：

Thank you for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Flotation performance and adsorption mechanism of a novel chelating collector to azurite” (Ms. Ref. No.: Minerals-1637485). Those comments are valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, and provide the important guiding significance to our studies. We have studied the comments carefully and have made corrections, which we hope to meet with approval. These revised portions are marked in red in the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the response to your comments are as follows:

1. What do the authors mean by vulcanisation? This is not a term used in flotation that I am aware of. Is it appropriate?

Response: I am very sorry for the misunderstanding. I have replaced "vulcanisation" with "sulfidization".

2. What do you mean by purification using ultrasonics? This is not clear. Do you mean that you deslimed the sample prior to conditioning with reagents?

Response: We are very sorry for this unclear expression. Actually, I removed the mud from the sample before treating it with the reagent, in order to ensure that the azurite samples in flotation and testing were not affected by surface impurities.

3. Finally, I not sure what I should see in Figure 10. The particles look similar to me.

Response: We can see in Figs.10(a) and (b) the pure mineral particles of azurite have a massive structure with different sizes, and the cleavage surfaces are relatively flat, before the action of CDDP. But in Figs 10(c) and 10(d), After the action of CDDP, the microstructure of azurite surface is change and the flat surface of azurite become uneven, indicating that a certain degree of dissolution occurs on the surface of azurite it is means that the azurite surface undergoes the interaction of CDDP.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx