Potential Use of Paper Mill Sludge in Improving Soil Quality for Plant Growth

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The presented manuscript includes the study of the potential use of paper mill sludge in improving soil quality for plant growth. 

The manuscript is well-written but should be better structured. The results of the work are presented on a good level but some questions and weak points should be mentioned. The paper fits the AppSci journal.

1. Abstract. Line 21. “soil modifiers”  

2. “ PMS has been shown to improve soil structure, nutrient availability, and water retention.” –ref needed.

3. p.1, line 36. “ heavy metal contamination”. – ref is needed. What the source of HM in PMS? If so, the authors have to include ICP-MS HM analysis in their paper.

4. It is the worst practice to use more than 3 refs in one place. Please add refs after each way of PMS disposal. Please also add ref to the “Paper industry slag for the production of building ceramics”.

5. The choice of soil modifiers has to be introduced in the Introduction section.

6.  The composition of PMS including HM (as authors mentioned in the Introduction section) has to be presented in subsection 2.1.

7. p4. Lines 127-133. A brief description of each method of analysis has to be described. 

8. 2.4. Seedling test. How many seeds were sown?

9. Fig. 1. Please split the raw of Petri dish into two, to make them more visible.

10. Table 3. Guess COP37:PMS=5:5 and TOP55:PMS=5:5 should be COP37:PMS=50:50 and TOP55:PMS=50:50

11. Paper contains a lot of typos. Please double-check the whole text.

12. Most of the references are too old. Please, up to date the relevant references for the 2022 and 2023 years to prove the novelty and actuality of the work.

13. Obtained results have to be compared with published analogs through the results and discussion parts. Some seeds germination and growth using industrial wastes are described in some recent publications: approaches for filtrate utilization from synthetic gypsum production, synthesis and effect of CoCuFeNi high entropy alloy nanoparticles on seed germination, plant growth, and microorganisms inactivation activity

 

Author Response

The reply is attached in a separate file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors, 

although the objective of the work is good and adopted green sustainable approach to increase the productivity of soil using PMS but the manuscript requires thorough revision. 

Scientific soundness is not up to the mark and following points need to be taken into account. 

 

1. Experiments were done by creating artificial environment with optimum conditions  (like 25 degree celcius temperature and optimum pH) . Effect of varied temperature (20-30 with difference of 2 degree can be done, similarly other conditions should also be taken as variables.

2. Characterization of PMS should also be carried out.

3. In the discussion part the role of composition of PMS on the fertility of soil should also be discussed.  

4. One major concern about this study is the chemical composition of PMS. if PMS contain any harmful chemical, what will be the absorption rate of that particular chemical via lettuce??

Authors should discussed all the above points then after only the manuscript can be considered for publication.

 

Author Response

The reply is attached in a separate file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

all comments were addressed 

 

Author Response

/

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors have made all the suggested revisions

manuscript is accepted 

Author Response

/