Rock Powder Applied in the Discoloration of Industry Dye of Molded Pulp Packages Effluent

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript would be published only just after the following minor revisions:

1) Adsorption as one of the most important technologies for the efficient removal of harmful or toxic substances could be emphasized as the 1st sentence in the Introduction section of the manuscript. Thus, some relevant supporting references listed below may be cited to support the sentence:

[1] Highly cost-efficient sorption and desorption of mercury ions onto regenerable poly(m-phenylenediamine) microspheres with many active groups. Chemical Engineering Journal 391 (2020) 123515.

[2] Synthesis of poly(1,5-diaminonaphthalene) microparticles with abundant amino and imino groups as strong adsorbers for heavy metal ions. Microchim Acta 186 (2019) 208.

[3] The Efficiency of Vermiculite as Natural Sorbent for Heavy Metals. Application to a Contaminated Soil. Water Air Soil Pollut 181 (2007) 149–160.

[4] Extraction and preconcentration of toxic metal ions from aqueous solution using benzothiazole-based chelating resins. Microchemical Journal 87 (2007) 47-55.

[5] Powerful Reactive Sorption of Silver(I) and Mercury(II) onto Poly(o-phenylenediamine) Microparticles. Langmuir 25 (2009) 1675–1684.

2) The Portuguese in the whole manuscript except for the references should be translated into English.

3) More discussions are needed!

4) The tables and figures should be carefully revised and/or corrected.

The English in the whole manuscript should be revised carefully under the guidance of native English speakers. For example,

In Fig. 3: "Degress" and "(u. a)";

In Fig. 4b: "Sinal PA (u. a.)“ and "Wavelenght ";

In Fig. 5: "Transminttance"

 

 

 

Author Response

The authors are thankful for the comments and corrections of the reviewer.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The work presented is good. need some changes

1- write same notation colour or color etc. similarly others.

2- add modren approaches such as role of radiation 

3- give a schematic flow sheet about your work importance

4- in conclusion add novality and future aspects

Author Response

The authors are thankful for the comments and corrections of the reviewer.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Before accepting this article for publishing, here are my comments to be addressed:

-  Please add the chemical structures of the dye and clay minerals.

- The authors explained at length the SEM instrument specifications, which is not required here.

-    X-ray diffraction “2 to 3 at 90..”, please correct or explain

-   Change β description to “full width at half maximum”

-  Please add an illustrative scheme of the reactor of the photocatalytic reaction.

-    3.1.1. SEM section must be rewritten

-   Please calculate the quantitative composition of the minerals in the rock dust.

-   Figure 6 (a), explain the adsorption desorption behavior of salicylic acid in the adsorption step, also you must explain the increase of salicylic acid in the photocatalytic degradation stage.

-   Photoacoustic spectroscopy, what is the criteria to select the peak at 520 nm (I can’t see peak absorption band there).

-   Explain the reason for air bubbling during the photocatalysis.

-   Please remove the repeatition and redundancy in sections 2.3, 2.4, 2.4.1, and 2.4.2.

-   Figure 8 (b), (c) and (d) are not following the plots of figure 8 (a), correct or remove.

-   Figure 8  (a), why in the run 2, no adsorption was achieved?

-   Figure numbering must be corrected.

 

English typos and mistakes should be corrected.

 

Author Response

The authors are thankful for the comments and corrections of the reviewer.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

- The justification of air bubbling during the photocatalysis should be added to the manuscript, not only to the reviewer response.

- Regarding the explanation of the decrease and then increase behavior of salicylic acid during the photocatalytic degradation stage is irrelevant, the same with the reference.

- Remove the other language script in Figure 10, change to English.

 

Moderate editing of English language required

Author Response

Reviewer #3

The authors are thankful for the comments and corrections of the reviewer.

 

The justification of air bubbling during the photocatalysis should be added to the manuscript, not only to the reviewer response.

Was added.

 

- Regarding the explanation of the decrease and then increase behavior of salicylic acid during the photocatalytic degradation stage is irrelevant, the same with the reference.

Thanks for the correction. Indeed, we have checked the chromatograms (high-performance liquid chromatography - HPLC) and cannot be sure. So we remove the sentence, "However, a subsequent increase followed by a further decrease suggests a possible formation of reaction intermediates.” Observing this, we will make a careful analysis in future works, due to being a relevant point.

- Remove the other language script in Figure 10, change to English.

Was corrected.