Design and Construction of a Laboratory-Scale Direct-Current Electric Arc Furnace for Metallurgical and High-Titanium Slag Smelting Studies

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments are in file of Word.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewers,

Thanks very much for taking your time to review this manuscript. I really appreciate all your comments and suggestions! Please find my itemized responses in below and my revisions in the re-submitted files.

our manuscript has been reviewed by a native english speaker and revised to improve readability.

We hope that the revisions in the manu and our accompanying responses will be sufficient to make our manu suitable for publication in the Meatls.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors. It was nice to read your paper. Please find some suggestions in the uploaded file. Kind regards

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewers,

Thanks very much for taking your time to review this manuscript. I really appreciate all your comments and suggestions! Please find my itemized responses in below and my revisions in the re-submitted files.

our manuscript has been reviewed by a native english speaker and revised to improve readability.

We hope that the revisions in the manu and our accompanying responses will be sufficient to make our manu suitable for publication in the Meatls.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

This manuscript does not meet scientific standards. Please reorganise and rewrite completely before considering a second submission.

Best regards, reviewer

The following questions must be clarified in the introduction section 1:

What is the purpose of this study, DC-EAF development for lab scale or metallurgical process development on TiO2-rich raw materials? What is the problem to be solved?

Why did you decide for an DC-EAF for this study? Please consider also AC-EAFs in the introduction section 1, table 1 etc. AC-EAFs are most widespread technology in industrial metallurgy. Tilting and EBT tapping are state-of-the -art, both with advantages and disadvantages on mixing depending on the metallurgical process condistions. Please specify on your TiO2-rich process.

Please check the research made on ilmenite metallurgical processing. There are a lot of material about industrial furnace designs especially for separation of the TiO2 slag.

Section 2:

DC-EAFs have some advantages for industrial use. However, due to recent developments on power and flicker control, AC-EAFs are operated as-the-state-of-art, i.e. at lower investment costs. Please consider current EAF technology and specify your manuscript.

In section 2.2.1: please describe the actual problem of tapping technology, and most important the metallurgical constraints to be considered. Figure 6 needs explanation. What is the improvement in Figure 7?

Energy balance of the lab EAF on page 7, eq. 8 and 9, is not appropriate. Description of energy transfer from DC arc to slag/melt and arc characteristics is completely missing. Please check literature and improve.

Where is Ti reactions in eq. 11-15? Why Vanadium?

What are the chemical compositions of your raw materials?

Please provide data for your chemical energy calculations on page 8. All data on Qi are missing.

Provide reference for data in Table 3.

Software description for data assessment in 3.2 is not needed here, because there are standard data sets.

Shift Table 6 and 7 to section 2, together with explanation about the aimed process. Text from line 355 - 370 shall be shifted to section 2, description of the experiments. There are no results.

Explain Fig. 12. There are only some broken samples shown.

Conclusions are not appopriate. Please check literature on EAF technology, AC- vs. DC-EAFs, energy balance of EAFs, and ilmenite processing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewers,

Thanks very much for taking your time to review this manuscript. I really appreciate all your comments and suggestions! Please find my itemized responses in below and my revisions in the re-submitted files.

our manuscript has been reviewed by a native english speaker and revised to improve readability.

We hope that the revisions in the manu and our accompanying responses will be sufficient to make our manu suitable for publication in the Meatls.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors! It was nice to read your corrected version.

Equation 28 (prev. 25): if coefficient K_T has no unit, the equation is wrong. Maybe add its units in the text as you did for the rest in the equation.

Equation 3 (prev. 2): where does 0.0968 come from and what mathematical body did you take to calculate the equation for the volume of the crucible. It is not a sphere and it is not just a cylinder. Add this information, so that the number and used parameters will be clear.

Thank you, kind regards

Author Response

Dear Reviewers,

 

Thanks very much for taking your time to review this manuscript. I really appreciate all your comments and suggestions! Please find my itemized responses in below and my revisions in the re-submitted files.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf