Evaluation of Jatropha curcas and Pistachio Shell Particles as Modifier for Asphalt Binder
, Claudia Esmeralda Ramos-Galván and MarÃa Yolanda Chávez-Cinco
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Very interesting paper, well organized.
I have only to recommend a minor review to check some typos and some suggestions.
Personally would suggest to use "pure asphalt" (as you reported in Table1 caption) instead of "pristine asphalt" to indicate the bituminous base.A quite good overview of the correct terminology to be used (with references to Standards and globally used terminologies) is reported in the pubblication of Asphalt Institute and Eurobitume "The Bitumen Industry - A Blobal Perspective - Production, chemistry, use, specification and occupational exposure".
Line 21
founding that Pisstachio Pistachio shells particles can act as modifier and Jatropha curcas act more line like filler due when high content of particles is added an inverse effect as modifier is observed.
Line 28
Chapter 1 has a different format than the other chapters of the paper
Line 181
The improvement in softening point, makes the asphalt binder stiffer, which causes its straight against mechanical damage to improve, make susceptibility to permanent deformation, decreases [10, 17].
The sentence is not clear. The meaning is the following one?
The improvement in softening point makes the asphalt binder stiffer, which causes its strength against mechanical damage to improve, and the susceptibility to permanent deformation decreases [10, 17].
- Please check Figure 5 caption format
- Axis legends in Figures 7 and 8 have a different dimension than the previous Figures.
Author Response
REVIEWER 1
I have only to recommend a minor review to check some typos and some suggestions.
Personally would suggest to use "pure asphalt" (as you reported in Table1 caption) instead of "pristine asphalt" to indicate the bituminous base.A quite good overview of the correct terminology to be used (with references to Standards and globally used terminologies) is reported in the pubblication of Asphalt Institute and Eurobitume "The Bitumen Industry - A Blobal Perspective - Production, chemistry, use, specification and occupational exposure”.
Response: Thanks to reviewer for the comments, the corrections were done and the references for correct terminologies proposed was checked.
Line 21
founding that Pisstachio Pistachio shells particles can act as modifier and Jatropha curcas act more line like filler due when high content of particles is added an inverse effect as modifier is observed.
Response: Thanks to reviewer for the observation, the correction was done and it was highlighted in red text for easy identification.
Line 28
Chapter 1 has a different format than the other chapters of the paper
Response: Thanks to reviewer for the observation, the text format was corrected in section of introduction.
Line 181
The improvement in softening point, makes the asphalt binder stiffer, which causes its straight against mechanical damage to improve, make susceptibility to permanent deformation, decreases [10, 17].
The sentence is not clear. The meaning is the following one?
The improvement in softening point makes the asphalt binder stiffer, which causes its strength against mechanical damage to improve, and the susceptibility to permanent deformation decreases [10, 17].
Response: Thanks a lot to reviewer for the good observation, it was a mistake for autocorrector, the correct way is like reviewer comment, “strength” instead of straight.
- Please check Figure 5 caption format
Response: Thanks for observation, the caption format of figure 5 it is the same like other figures caption.
- Axis legends in Figures 7 and 8 have a different dimension than the previous Figures.
Response: Thanks for observation, figures were re-sized to have the same dimension than the rest of figures.
The authors appreciate the deep and conscientious work to review the manuscript in the aim to improve the quality.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Editor,
The paper could be interesting for the hot topic (waste materials) but the results are not congruent.
The viscosity measurements are not described well. The authors should indicate the shear rate, the equilibrium time (the time that the system needs to reach the steady state)
Let speak the data:
The viscosity and ring ball values are particular. The viscosity at 190°C is higher than the viscosity value at 135°C. Why? It is not expected. Similar situation for ring and ball. It seems that increasing the filler concentration the system becomes softer. Strange
The comparison with the behaviour when the common filler is used, is missing. I suggest to use for example Calcium carbonate in order to understand the real filler effect.
The microscopy images are not described well. Which zoom? Which scale?
TGA: the only trends of the additives are missing
Please indicate the experimental errors
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
This is an interesting and timely work. Some comments:
- It is not needed to list som many researches on rice husk, please revise it.
- In the introduction, authors provide a rich review of the previous research on the investigation on the use of agriculture waste. Please summarize them into a table with the items of waste type, functions (binder replacement, additive, filler, fine/coarse aggregate), phase (binder, mastic, mixture), properties, influence (quantitative analysis or qualitative analysis). It will be easier for readers to follow.
- The possibility of industrial level use of jatropha curcas and pistachio shells should be considered.
- The testing plan and analysis are reliable.
- Normally, bio based bitumen has poor performance properties at low temperatures, how the authors think about it.
Author Response
REVIEWER 2
This is an interesting and timely work. Some comments:
- It is not needed to list som many researches on rice husk, please revise it.
Response: Thanks a lot for the observation, the reason why we report lot of works that use rice husk to modified asphalt is due this kind of material is the most studied material in this field.
- In the introduction, authors provide a rich review of the previous research on the investigation on the use of agriculture waste. Please summarize them into a table with the items of waste type, functions (binder replacement, additive, filler, fine/coarse aggregate), phase (binder, mastic, mixture), properties, influence (quantitative analysis or qualitative analysis). It will be easier for readers to follow.
Response: Thanks a lot for the recommendation, a table where is summarized the kind of material and function in asphalt was included.
- The possibility of industrial level use of jatropha curcas and pistachio shells should be considered.
Response: Thanks a lot for this comment, we started this work with the aim to explore if there is properties modification of asphalt when seed shells are included in an asphalt, so after this work we need to evaluate in low temperature the behavior of modified asphalt to obtain the performance grade in low and high temperature, due we have not the equipment necessary to carry out this evaluations, we need to contact the company that provided us the asphalt and other company that can help us to complete the evaluation.
- The testing plan and analysis are reliable.
Response: Thanks for this comment, we tried to report a good work.
- Normally, bio based bitumen has poor performance properties at low temperatures, how the authors think about it.
Response: Thanks for this comment, as we comment before, this was an exploratory work and it is the beginning of evaluation of asphalt modification, our group has work with chicken feather, sargassum and now with seed shells in the aim to find new materials to modified asphalt, so know that we identified that these kind of materials represent a good option, we will try to carry out evaluation at low temperatures for complete the evaluation of these materials.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Author I appreciated your corrections
in my opinion you should still explain:
a TGA: the only trends of the additives are missing. I mean. they should show the TGA of only additives in order to observe their behaviour in temperature.
Please indicate the experimental errors
Which is the experimental error? Look the table 1, the viscosity of P8 is 433.83, all other viscosity is with 1 decimal digit.
Author Response
RESPONSE TO REVIEWERS:
Dear Dr. Karin Habermehl-Cwirzen, Editor of Special issue “Innovative Building Materials”, in Applied Sciences Journal:
Concerning the manuscript entitled: “Evaluation of Jatropha curcas and Pistachio shells particles as 2 Modifier for Asphalt binder”, the authors wish thanks to reviewers for your thorough review and positive comments in the aim to improve the manuscript. Hoping that this reply provides the support to those observations, and the manuscript can be consider to publish in your prestigious Journal, the changes were highlighted in red text for easy identification.
Kind regards
On behalf of all authors
Dr. José Luis Rivera-Armenta
Tecnológico Nacional de México/Instituto Tecnológico de Ciudad Madero
Tel: +52-833-2832973
REVIEWER 2
Dear Author I appreciated your corrections in my opinion you should still explain:
a TGA: the only trends of the additives are missing. I mean. they should show the TGA of only additives in order to observe their behaviour in temperature.
Response: Thanks a lot to reviewer for this observation, the TGA thermogram of Jatropha cruces and Pistachio shells were included in figures 7 and 8, with a discussion about the behavior, and two references about this discussion [32] and [34] were included.
Please indicate the experimental errors
Which is the experimental error? Look the table 1, the viscosity of P8 is 433.83, all other viscosity is with 1 decimal digit.
Response: Thanks for your conscientious observation about experimental error, the reported Viscosity values are obtained from an average of 3 measurements, and this was the reported value in table 2, about that only ehe sample P8 has two decimal digit, that was a writing mistake, the value must be 433.8, this was corrected. It could be said that, in most of cases, there is a margin of error in measurements, if error is defined as the difference between the measurement and the “tru” value of the magnitude, so then this error will always exist. That is the case o method for measure Viscosity in our work.
Sincerely yours
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
