An Electrochemical Study of Gold Dissolution in Thiosulfate Solution with Cobalt–Ammonia Catalysis
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
An interesting manuscript that presents both the theoretical bases and experimental results interpreted meticulously.
It was a real pleasure to read this manuscript. Given the experience of the authors in relation to the topic it is obvious why this manuscript is very well organized and scientifically documented.
The authors present a very extensive study of the literature in which they present the current state of knowledge.
There are some minor corrections that the authors must make before this manuscript can be published.
The scan rate used to plot the polarization curves must be specified, as well as how to plot them (start potential to end potential). Were the anodic curves recorded separately from the cathodic ones or were they just presented separately? Please specify. This must be done for all polarization curves for both the behavior of gold in different thiosulfate solutions and the decomposition study of thiosulfate.
I think that this manuscript lacks the contribution of each author to the accomplishment of this work. Please complete.
Author Response
Dear Editor:
On behalf of my co-authors, we would like to express our sincere appreciation to you and reviewers for constructive and thoughtful comments on our manuscript entitled “An electrochemical study of gold dissolution in thiosulfate solution with cobalt-ammonia catalysis”. These comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper. We have considered the comments carefully and have tried our best to amend the manuscript according to your kind advice and the reviewers’ detailed suggestions, and the modifications are all highlighted within the revised manuscript by using yellow colored text. Below you will find our point-by-point responses to the comments, suggestions and questions.
Responses to Reviewer #1
Review comments: An interesting manuscript that presents both the theoretical bases and experimental results interpreted meticulously. It was a real pleasure to read this manuscript. Given the experience of the authors in relation to the topic it is obvious why this manuscript is very well organized and scientifically documented. The authors present a very extensive study of the literature in which they present the current state of knowledge. There are some minor corrections that the authors must make before this manuscript can be published.
Answer: Thank you very much for your insightful evaluation for our manuscript. All of your comments are very important and conducive to improve our writing and research work. We have studied the suggestions carefully and have tried our best to make relevant revisions which were marked in yellow in the revised manuscript.
The scan rate used to plot the polarization curves must be specified, as well as how to plot them (start potential to end potential). Were the anodic curves recorded separately from the cathodic ones or were they just presented separately? Please specify. This must be done for all polarization curves for both the behavior of gold in different thiosulfate solutions and the decomposition study of thiosulfate.
Answer: Thank you very much for your positive and insightful evaluation for our manuscript. We have studied the suggestions carefully and have tried our best to make relevant revisions which were marked in yellow in the revised manuscript. The scan rate used to plot the polarization curves was added for both the behavior of gold in different thiosulfate solution and platinum for the decomposition of thiosulfate. Anodic curves and cathodic curves were recorded solely, which were from linear scanning in different solution. We have added to the experimental method of polarization curves in Section 2.1.
I think that this manuscript lacks the contribution of each author to the accomplishment of this work. Please complete.
Answer: We have appended the contribution of each author at the end of the manuscript, as shown as follows.
Ke Li: Investigation, Validation, Writing-original draft. Qian Li: Conceptualization, Methodology, Funding acquisition. Writing-review & editing. Bin Xu: Resources, Funding acquisition, Writing-review & editing. Yongbin Yang: Supervision, Resources. Tao Jiang: Supervision. Resources.
Special thanks to you for your constructive suggestions.
Reviewer 2 Report
An electrochemical study of gold dissolution in thiosulfate solution with cobalt-ammonia catalysis is very important paper. Some minor improvement is required.
Line 16: The apparent activation energy for gold dissolution is 41.15 kJ/mol, Please to add a temperature range for calculation and validity of this activation Energy!
Line 21: The apparent activation energy for thiosulfate decomposition is determined to be 22.12 kJ/mol. Please to add a temperature range for calculation and validity of this activation Energy!
line 215: Effect of ammonia concentration on gold dissolution (in which form is gold? (powder? bulk material?pure gold?))
Line 253: According to the slope of the line, the apparent activation energy was determined to be 41.15kJ/mol (to add: in temperature between 25°C and 40°C)
Line 406: The apparent activation energy of gold dissolution is 41.15 kJ/mol (between 26.6 and 41°C)
Author Response
Dear Editor:
On behalf of my co-authors, we would like to express our sincere appreciation to you and reviewers for constructive and thoughtful comments on our manuscript entitled “An electrochemical study of gold dissolution in thiosulfate solution with cobalt-ammonia catalysis”. These comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper. We have considered the comments carefully and have tried our best to amend the manuscript according to your kind advice and the reviewers’ detailed suggestions, and the modifications are all highlighted within the revised manuscript by using yellow colored text. Below you will find our point-by-point responses to the comments, suggestions and questions.
Responses to Reviewer #2
Review comments: This paper focused on the effect of jarosite on gold dissolution and thiourea consumption and the role of oxalate. It is interesting and I recommend its publication with minor revisions if the authors attend the following details.
Answer: I am very grateful to your positive and insightful evaluation for our manuscript. All of your suggestions are valuable and helpful to enrich our research content and improve the article. We had done our best to modify the relevant part in the manuscript carefully according to your comments, and the point-by-point responses to the comments are given below.
Line 16: The apparent activation energy for gold dissolution is 41.15 kJ/mol, please to add a temperature range for calculation and validity of this activation Energy!
Answer: We have corrected “The apparent activation energy for gold dissolution is 41.15 kJ/mol” with “The apparent activation energy for gold dissolution is 41.15 kJ/mol in temperature range of 25-40 oC”.
Line 21: The apparent activation energy for thiosulfate decomposition is determined to be 22.12 kJ/mol. Please to add a temperature range for calculation and validity of this activation Energy!
Answer: We have corrected “The apparent activation energy for thiosulfate decomposition is determined to be 22.12 kJ/mol” with “The apparent activation energy for thiosulfate decomposition with the temperature range of 26.6-41 oC is determined to be 22.12 kJ/mol”.
Line 215: Effect of ammonia concentration on gold dissolution (in which form is gold? (powder? bulk material?pure gold?))
Answer: In the gold dissolution experiment, a gold plaque was used as a working electrode. The purity of gold working electrode (Φ14 mm × 2 mm) is higher than 99.99%, and the exposed area of gold electrode was 1 cm2.
Line 253: According to the slope of the line, the apparent activation energy was determined to be 41.15kJ/mol (to add: in temperature between 25°C and 40°C)
Answer: We have corrected “According to the slope of the line, the apparent activation energy was determined to be 41.15kJ/mol” with “According to the slope of the line, the apparent activation energy was determined to be 41.15kJ/mol in temperature between 25 °C and 40 °C”.
Line 406: The apparent activation energy of gold dissolution is 41.15 kJ/mol (between 26.6 and 41°C)
Answer: We have corrected “The apparent activation energy of gold dissolution is 41.15 kJ/mol” with “The apparent activation energy of gold dissolution is 41.15 kJ/mol in temperature between 25 °C and 40 °C”.
Special thanks to you for your constructive suggestions.
