Influence of Biomass Absorptivity on the Process of Sinter Charge Pelletisation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Manuscript ID: applsci-923214   Title: Influence of Biomass Absorptivity on the Process of Sinter Charge Pelletisation Authors: Martina Džupková et al.  

 

line 6-8. The Authors did not write their affiliation.

2. Materials and Methods. line 127-165. This information must include to chapter 1. Introduction.

line 142. Whats the soap was used? Authors must write information about name, type and chemical composition.

line 200-202. Formula and signature on separate lines. Authors must be fixed this.

lines 188-217. This text is loosely related to the title of chapter 2. Authors need to be transferred this text to Introduction or deleted it. It is necessary to clearly describe the experimental methods in chapter 2 and write the analysis of the raw materials: pine and oak sawdust, Miscanthus Sinensis grass and Lavandula angustifolia. 

How was the calculation of the values for which figures 5,6,8,9 were built? This information is not included in the article. Formulas 1-2 do not help in understanding this issue.

Figure 7 and 10 needs to show in chapter 2. Figures 5,6,8,9 are very poor quality. Re-write it by OriginPro software. Authors must add a, b, c signature to figures and titles. What is the errors bars on the points at figures 5,6,8,9?

Authors should write how they got different types of material fractions. What equipment was used? Is there laser diffraction of samples in confirming particle size distribution?

Figure 11. Scale is not signed, there is only a ruler

line 425, 429. What equipment did the Authors use to photograph samples of Figure 12, 13? This information needs to be added to the chapter 2.

line 447. How the Authors obtained the data in Table 2. Does this data duplicate the data from the figures 5,6,8,9?

The Authors does not use coke dust (the main material for the iron-pellets production). It's unclear how well the new material performs compared to coke dust.

Authors must deleted page 16.

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I have some comments about the text. Is is rather connected with editing of the text:

• PAGE 2, LINE 53 – lack of comma before the figure and space before the number of Figure (it is better to write: „temperature etc., Figure 1).
• PAGE 3, LINE 11 – dot is in red but should be in black: [10].
• PAGE 4, LINE 158 – remove the space after the number of literature – [18].
• PAGE 4, LINE 164 – it is better to add comma after „hence”.
• PAGE 5, LINES 199-204 – something wrong with editing of formulas. The number of first formula is in the next line. Maybe it was caused during preparing pdf file
• PAGE 25, LINE 213 – I am not sure but I think it should be “ml” not “mL”?
• PAGE 7, LINE 293 – problem with editing of text. It is left align, but it should be just from left to right.
• PAGE 8, LINE 319 – it is better to use “also” not “too”. It is usually used on the end of the sentence.
• PAGE 10, LINE 369-374 – problem with editing of text. It is left align, but it should be just from left to right.
• PAGE 12, LINE 438 –“biomass” is used two times. I think the second should be removed
• FIGURES 5, 6, 8, 9 – there are two problems: they are illegible because the problem of proportions: chart field should be bigger, while titles and numbers on exes are too big. The chart legend also can be slower. The second problem: chart legends in different figures are different: once they started with capital letter, once low letter in Fig. 6 it is mixed. You should do in the same way in all figures. Next thing: number and names of figures are edited in different way: once left align, in other – centered. This second option is correct.

It would be great to check also economic and ecological aspects, eg.: How can it (use of biomass in sintering process) influence on the cost? How can itinfluence on the pollution volume in the sintering process? Of course, I know it is the problem for separate article, but maybe authors can take it into account.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The Authors present a study on the capacity of water absorption of different materials derived from biomass.

The manuscript in its present form needs some adjustments before to be considered suitable for publication.

Abstract: in its current version it seems a collage between introduction and experimental part. It should be rewritten. After a short introduction of the context, the main results achieved should be presented in general terms.

Figure 1: what is d? Improve the quality of the figure.

Figure 2: improve the quality. Revise the format of the caption.

Line 102: add an = between d and 2.3. Same thing in line 105.

Line 108: verb missing (is)

Move the definition of the biomass herein considered (line 121) before in the Introduction. Place it when the term biomass it appears for the first time.

Move at the end of the introduction the first part (up to line 136) of the materials and methods section.

Figure 11: how these pictures were achieved? specify in the text and in the figure caption.

Same observation for figures 12 and 13.

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The Authors made big changes to the article. Authors gave an explanation of the experimental technique. Authors fixed technical errors and bugs.
The only question is the figures 5,6,8,9. They are still of very low quality and are made in Microsoft Excel. These are not just figures, it is the main result of this study. Therefore, they must be presented very well.
Let the Editor decide whether to change the graphics, but they greatly reduce the quality of the article. They must be redone in the OriginPro software.

Author Response

Due to the fact that we did not have the OriginPro program bought, we corrected the graphs in program Excel. Instead of continuity points, we created functionality (dependencies) and added a correlation coefficient to each relation.

Thank you for your comments, that helped us to increase the quality of our paper. 

Reviewer 3 Report

All the issues were properly addressed.

Author Response

Thank you very much.