Green Treatment of Cyanide Tailings Using a “Filter Press BackWash–Chemical Precipitation–Gaseous Membrane Absorption” Method
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript entitled „Green treatment of cyanide tailings by “filter press backwash-chemical precipitation-gaseous membrane absorption method” process” presents important and interesting informations especially in the context of an ecological approach to treatment of tailings. The manuscript is written correctly, keeping the form of a scientific paper (generally). Good background and experimental set-up and operation. Chapters 3.2. and 3.4. deserve special attention. However: 1.) please (preferably at the end of the "1. Introduction") clearly emphasise (even in one or two sentences) the purpose of the work (aim) and its current importance; 2.) no reference (especially literature ) to other authors' research results and no discussion in the "4. Conclusions" - a brief discussion would be welcome. Considering the above (aim and short discussion), I accept this work in present form.
Author Response
Response to Revision Results
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for your letter and for the comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Green treatment of cyanide tailings by “filter press back-wash-chemical precipitation-gaseous membrane absorption method” process”. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. And then, we carry out a comprehensive revision of the manuscript. Revised portion are marked in red in the paper. The revision is addressed below point by point.
Reviewer #1: The manuscript entitled „Green treatment of cyanide tailings by “filter press backwash-chemical precipitation-gaseous membrane absorption method” process” presents important and interesting informations especially in the context of an ecological approach to treatment of tailings. The manuscript is written correctly, keeping the form of a scientific paper (generally). Good background and experimental set-up and operation. Chapters 3.2. and 3.4. deserve special attention. However: 1.) please (preferably at the end of the "1. Introduction") clearly emphasise (even in one or two sentences) the purpose of the work (aim) and its current importance; 2.) no reference (especially literature ) to other authors' research results and no discussion in the "4. Conclusions" - a brief discussion would be welcome. Considering the above (aim and short discussion), I accept this work in present form.
No.1：please (preferably at the end of the "1. Introduction") clearly emphasise (even in one or two sentences) the purpose of the work (aim) and its current importance;
Response to Reviewer comment No.1: Thank you very much for the comments.
Cyanide tailings belong to hazardous waste, and the cyanide contained in them is highly toxic. If the cyanide is stored directly in the tailings pond without treatment, the cyanide will be slowly released into the surrounding soil and water, damaging the ecological environment and even threatening the safety of human life. Therefore, green treatment of cyanide tailings with “filter press backwash-chemical precipitation-gaseous membrane absorption method” was carried out in this study. The purpose of this study is to make the treated cyanide tailings meet the requirements of TSPC to enter the tailing pond for storage (that is, the TCN concentration in the leaching toxic solution of cyanide tailings is less than 5 mg/L), and realize the recycling of cyanide-containing water without generating secondary pollution.
And we have made comprehensive revisions on Lines 62-81 at the end of the "1. Introduction".
No.2： no reference (especially literature ) to other authors' research results and no discussion in the "4. Conclusions" - a brief discussion would be welcome.
Response to Reviewer comment No.2: Thank you very much for the comments.
Compared with the existing AVR and SART processes, this process adopts the first acidification and then vulcanization for copper precipitation, which has the advantages of good copper precipitation effect, low consumption of sodium hydride sulfide and no secondary wastewater generation [1-4]. And the treated acidic water in this process is used as backwash water to recycle the alkaline cyanide tailings, so there is no need to add alkali for neutralization, and there is no acid wastewater discharge. What’s more, the process adopts gaseous membrane to absorb HCN, which has high absorption efficiency and low energy consumption compared with the traditional inflatable volatilization reabsorption [5].
And we have made comprehensive revisions on Lines 408-410 and Lines 429-441 at the end of the "4. Conclusions".
References
- Riveros, P.A.; Molnar, R.E.; McNamara, V.M. Alternative-technology to decrease the environmental-impact of gold milling - A progress report on canmet research activitiesin this filed. Cim Bulletin 1993, 86, 167-171.
- Prosyanikov, E.D.; Tsybikova, B.A.; Batoeva, A.A.; Ryazantsev, A.A. Extraction of hydrogen cyanide from waste solutions of cyaniding circuit for sulfide flotation concentrates. Journal of Mining Science 2009, 45, 80-86, doi:10.1007/s10913-009-0010-0.
- Adams, M.D. Impact of recycling cyanide and its reaction products on upstream unit operations. Minerals Engineering 2013, 53, 241-255, doi:10.1016/j.mineng.2013.04.012.
- Estay, H.; Becker, J.; Carvajal, P.; Arriagada, F. Predicting HCN gas generation in the SART process. Hydrometallurgy 2012, 113, 131-142, doi:10.1016/j.hydromet.2011.12.019.
- Estay, H.; Gim-Krumm, M.; Quilaqueo, M. Two-stage SART process: A feasible alternative for gold cyanidation plants with high zinc and copper contents. Minerals 2018, 8, doi:10.3390/min8090392.
Your consideration of our manuscript for review and further publication in “Applied Sciences” will be appreciated very much.
Sincerely,
Shufeng Ye, Professor.
State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Complex Systems,
Institute of Process Engineering (IPE),
Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS),
E-mail: [email protected]
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper is generallz fine from the methodological point of view, but must be extensivelz edited before the publication in terms of English usage. The involvement of native English speaker is preferred. Apart from grammatical mistakes the Reviewer struggled to understand sometimes complete sentences.
Some other notes:
1) The authors should reconsider using word "drugs" (line 61)
2) "air-dried" - is it a noun, or an adjective? the use of this word in the manuscript is confusing
3) Maybe the “filter press backwash-chemical precipitation-gaseous membrane absorption method” can be abbreviated?
Author Response
Response to Revision Results
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for your letter and for the comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Green treatment of cyanide tailings by “filter press back-wash-chemical precipitation-gaseous membrane absorption method” process”. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. And then, we carry out a comprehensive revision of the manuscript. Revised portion are marked in red in the paper. The revision is addressed below point by point.
Reviewer #2: The paper is generallz fine from the methodological point of view, but must be extensivelz edited before the publication in terms of English usage. The involvement of native English speaker is preferred. Apart from grammatical mistakes the Reviewer struggled to understand sometimes complete sentences.
Some other notes:
1) The authors should reconsider using word "drugs" (line 61)
2) "air-dried" - is it a noun, or an adjective? the use of this word in the manuscript is confusing
3) Maybe the “filter press backwash-chemical precipitation-gaseous membrane absorption method” can be abbreviated?
No.1：The authors should reconsider using word "drugs" (line 61)
Response to Reviewer comment No.1: Thank you very much for the comments.
"drugs" has been modified to "reagents" in Line 60 of the manuscript.
No.2："air-dried" - is it a noun, or an adjective? the use of this word in the manuscript is confusing
Response to Reviewer comment No.2: Thank you very much for the comments.
"air-dried" is an adjective that was misused in some places in the manuscript, and we have changed the misused place to "air drying". And we have made detailed revisions on Lines 102, 106, 107, 157, 161, 163, 167, 171, 179, 198 and 223.
No.3: Maybe the “filter press backwash-chemical precipitation-gaseous membrane absorption method” can be abbreviated?
Response to Reviewer comment No.3: Thank you very much for the comments.
“filter press backwash-chemical precipitation-gaseous membrane absorption method” has been abbreviated to “FCG” in the manuscript. And we have made detailed revisions on Lines 13, 66, 97, 115, 402 and 405.
Your consideration of our manuscript for review and further publication in “Applied Sciences” will be appreciated very much.
Sincerely,
Shufeng Ye, Professor.
State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Complex Systems,
Institute of Process Engineering (IPE),
Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS),
E-mail: [email protected]
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
