Easily Pyrolyzable Biomass Components Significantly Affect the Physicochemical Properties and Water-Holding Capacity of the Pyrolyzed Biochar

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

What is lacking, is the global scope of this work: Why is it important to know the links among biomass properties and WHC of biochars?

Why is the WHC important, what is the link of biochar WHC to soil water retention capacity?  The authors should reformulate the context so as to attract the interest of the reader. Is it for agriculture, for urban soil permeability, other?

Some shortcoming exist in the description of the biochar production: how exactly were biochars produced? Lab scale prepared chars can differ from pilot scale biochars. But most important, soil is simulated only by sand, which is not true. The authors shoul reformulate their decsription of work explaining the reasons of only testing with sand and not with real soil. It is not correct to stte that soil was simulated by snd only. However, the tests remain valuable even by only testing sand - biochar blends, if the objective of the research is not to highlight the soil aspects that can be improved, or not, but to concentrate on the biochar itself and its role in a constructed (technical) soil for urban applications (soil permeabiliation).  In short, the context, introduction, as i mentioned, is not clear.

Results section: You should show a figure where the functional group results correlate with the WHC results per biochar per temparature, before showing the overal results table 3 with the correlation coefficients. By the way the negative correlation coeff. of high H and O contents with WHC means what exactly? that the functional groups increase the WHC or decrease it? Later on you mention that functional groups make the biochars hydrophylic and therefore increase WHC. All this is confusing and need reformulation.

The Figures lack description: what do the letters a - d or a-h represent?

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

The english language needs improvement, i suggest a proof reading service.

for example, "Biochar is a sustainable soil amendment as the feedstocks are agricultural and forestry wastes" 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We greatly appreciate the time and effort that you put into reviewing our manuscript. Our manuscript has been significantly improved with these comments and suggestions. We also send out our manuscript for English editing and we believe our English writing has been improved. Please see the attachment of point to point response to the comments, the revised manuscript with remarks and Certificate of English editing.

Yours sincerely,

Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript entitled "Easily pyrolysable components in biomass significantly affect physicochemical properties and water holding capacity of the pyrolyzed biochar" is dealing with the biomass pyrolysis and application of resultant biochar to assess improvement in water holding capacity in a laboratory experiment. The manuscript is a type of routine work done considerably on the biochar research in the past few years. However, it has some novelty and can be considered for publication. The content is presented well and have merit to be published in the journal Agriculture. However, there are certain questions related to the statistical analysis and presentation of results which need to be addressed clearly before proceeding further. Detailed comments and suggestions are mentioned in the attached file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We sincerely thank you for providing detailed comments and suggestions. We believe the revised manuscript has been greatly improved. Please see the attachment of point to point response to the comments, the revised manuscript with remarks and Certificate of English editing.

Yours sincerely,

Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The quality of the manuscipr has improved significantly. The uthors are serious and have provided an interesting piece of work. I recommend the paper for publication.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Here we thank the reviewer again for the detailed comments and useful suggestions.

Yours sincerely,

Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript has been partially revised in light of the suggestions given. There is ambiguity in the presentation of content in the main text and reviewer's response. The language of the manuscript is not appropriate and sometimes seems to be unscientific. For example, at one place it is written as "The crucible was pyrolyzed in the muffle furnace at a laboratory scale using target temperatures of 250°C, 350°C, 450°C, 550°C, and 650°C for 6 h at a heating rate of 159 5°C/min [13]." crucible was pyrolyzed but it should be like biomass was pyrolyzed. There are several such instances in the manuscript. 

Interestingly, the revised file is same as given earlier and not matching with the response file where corrections are made in track change. Also, the authors mentioned that ANOVA was performed at two replicates which is not scientifically accepted. Authors are advised to rework on the manuscript and submit an updated version for more clarity.

The manuscript is not satisfactorily revised and there are several discrepancies in the submitted version and response letter. Authors are advised to rework on the manuscript and resubmit it for further review. The language is also not scientifically correct at many instances.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Here we thank the reviewer again for the insightful suggestions and comments. In the las round of revision, we uploaded revised manuscript with-/without track changes in a zip file, which may lead to some confusion when checking updated manuscript. The line numbers in response letter referring to the revised manuscript without tracks. We hope the reviewer could understand that. For the second round of response, we carefully revised the manuscript according to the reviewer’s comments and suggestions. We also reworked on the language in a more scientific format. To clearly show the revision, we remark the updated part in blue color, where the red remarks are from last round of revision.

Yours Sincerely,

Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf