Upgrading Paper-Grade Pulp as Dissolving Pulp for Lyocell Fiber Preparation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The report addresses challenges in providing a broader feedstock base for the production of Lyocell fibers. The authors evaluated a series of sequential treatments to improve the properties of paper-grade pulp, bleached softwood kraft pulp (BSKP) for use in the production of Lyocell fibers. Each treatment had a goal to improve one or more properties of this pulp to achieve or exceed relevant properties of Lyocell-grade dissolving pulp.

Authors missed to describe the details of their experiments and the statistical analysis they used; for example, what were specific acids and enzymes used in these experiments and how many replicates were made in each set of treatments. In this context, the section on Materials and Methods must be improved by the addition of missing information. In addition, standards used in these experiments should be cited and sources of chemicals should be provided.

Authors refer to the presence of hemicelluloses in raw and treated BSKPs through an indirect measure of the R18. The determination of sugar composition of pulps would be beneficial to provide an additional parameter of quality control in comparison of Lyocell-grade dissolving pulp and raw and treated BCKPs.

Stability was determined by measuring the color index value at 633 nm which is the visible area of the spectrum (not “Ultraviolet absorption” as stated in line 101).

English should be edited/improved.

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review the article entitled “Upgrading Paper-grade Pulp to Dissolving Pulp for Lyocell Fiber Preparation” which deals with a relevant and important topic.

I appreciate the experimental work in the paper, but I do not feel that this research throws new light that deserves publication in a journal devoted to the latest finding of research in science and engineering of coatings, thin and thick films, surfaces and interfaces.

Regarding the originality and the novelty of the manuscript - the main objectives of the manuscript, the dissolution mechanism and influencing factors in cellulose chemistry has already been developed in other scientific outputs (please see DOI: 10.15376/biores.13.2.Zhang, 10.1016/B978-1-84569-931-4.00004-0, 10.1016/B978-0-08-102041-8.00010-X, 10.1533/9781845690373.198, 10.1016/B0-08-043152-6/01643-0 and so on...) .

From the point of view of the scientific reliability of the work - the research results are predictable since there are a lot of available reports on the topic and the subject is well known and I couldn’t find how the knowledge was upgraded..

Concerning the validity of the work - experimental methods used are clearly explained, but the results don’t surprise anybody since there is no new information added to the development of the field.

In conclusion, I don’t believe that the originality/novelty level of the manuscript is sufficient to justify the publication of this manuscript in Coatings (ISSN 2079-6412), a top tier journal devoted to the science and engineering of coatings, thin and thick films, surfaces and interfaces.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

In this study authors aimed to investigate the modification of paper grade kraft pulp to be used as dissolving pulp used for lyocell fiber production. The research design and the results presentation is not satisfactory. 

Points to be addressed by the authors are as follows:

-        The abstract does not provide an insight to the content since there is no sufficient information on the study presented in the following sections.

-        Materials and methods must be improved. None of the materials (chemicals) were presented properly by giving sufficient information of the source and properties.

-        Table 1 was not presented properly. Two tables are in same caption and there is no explanation on consistencies (%). Alkaline and acid properties must be presented as pH values and ± deviation. What is the “consistency” between temperature and time columns for? Consistency term is not found to be a suitable expression.

-        Treatments that were subjected for commercial sample shall be known in order  to compare the effects of treatments within the context of the article.

-        What are enzyme(s), caustic, and acid(s) 1 and acid(s) 2 contents? (specify the chemicals and grades of these chemicals)

-        The statement “function of severity of acid” is not acceptable. What is severity? What is the dimension of this severity?

-        The discussions provided in the results and discussion section are not adequate. This section should be enhanced.

-        A thorough check for language is better be applied in order to correct the grammatical errors.

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

The submitted manuscript on the title “ Upgrading Paper-grade Pulp to Dissolving Pulp for Lyocell Fiber Preparation” investigated the effect of caustic extraction, acid, and enzyme treatment for obtaining Lyocell-grade dissolving pulp. However, the manuscript can not be accepted due to several reasons.

. -The preparation and organization of the manuscript are not so well. As for example, the production of Table 1 is not well.    There are too many tables.

-Line 25-26: Side reactions of which components should be mentioned.

-Line 68-69: Who supplied the kraft pulp? What was the name of the company?

-Line 78-79: What are R10 and R18?

-Line-121: What does illustrated10 mean?

-Line161: Duo?

-Line 167: pinning?

- Section 3.3. Rheology properties of treated pulp: line-170-176: It seems the authors described other works.

Moreover, the manuscript needs English correction. There are many grammatical mistakes in the manuscript.

Author Response

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Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

some minor spelling/English errors should be fixed

Author Response

Thank you for your time and consideration, the manuscript has been carefully revised as suggested.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to rereview the article entitled “Upgrading Paper-grade Pulp to Dissolving Pulp for Lyocell Fiber Preparation” which deals with a relevant and important topic.

If the manuscript emphases on the raw material, then the characterization of raw material and treated pulp should be developed with other meaningful methods for dissolving pulps: properties at molecular level (chemical components, carbohydrates, hemicelluloses, kappa number, etc), properties of supramolecular structure (crystallinity), process variable to obtain the raw material (prehydrolysis, sulfite/sulfate production, H-factor, etc.) and so on.

My opinion is that the level of originality/novelty is not sufficient to justify the publication of this manuscript in a top tier journal devoted to the science and engineering of coatings, thin and thick films, surfaces and interfaces. Using an product already expensive to produce another product make the process pointless even from the economic point of view..

In brief, the data presented in this manuscript are interesting, the paper is well-written, well-structured, and richly illustrated, and some parts of this study represent an interesting contribution to the field. The manuscript should be revised to capture these true new findings of the author’s research.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

In this revised manuscript authors reported the modification of paper grade kraft pulp to be used as dissolving pulp used for lyocell fiber production. The article has been enhanced by changes in accordance to the review reports, but there are still some points to be taken into account.

Points to be addressed by the authors are as follows:

-        The statements such as “a pulp company based in Shandong Province, China.” and “an enzyme company based in Shenzhen, China” are not suitable to be used in a scientific article. The company names and material properties are presented in the materials and methods section in order to provide anyone reading the article to show a reproducible data by repeatable experimental design in order to avoid research misconduct within the research and publication ethics. If these contain commercial secrets, then authors may not need to publish such articles.

-        Authors responded as “Treatments for commercial sample are not available due to the confidentiality.”  then on what basis will the commercial sample and the test samples in this study will be compared? Any of the commercial product properties may differ greatly by different brands.

-        There is no economical evaluation on feasibility of the method while paper pulp can be considered being a relatively expensive raw material.  

Author Response

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