Study on High Temperature Pyrolysis Light Cycle Oil to Acetylene and Carbon Black
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Abstract. Kindly highlight the different raw materials which are increasing the chains of alkanes, cycloalkanes, and tetrahydro-naphthalene aromatics
Lithium batteries have their own disadvantages, did the author consider them?
The residence time needs to clarify in detail.
Elaborate more on hydrocarbon cracking.
"The acetylene Gibbs free energy...", The details of the Gibbs energy equation can be shown as supported data.
Figure 4. Please add an error bar.
"...both toluene and naphthalene were difficult to crack..." How did the author determine the difficulty of the crack?
Figure 5. Unclear image, Replace with higher quality.
Check the overall format of the reference. Make sure all is complete and standardize
Author Response
1.Abstract. Kindly highlight the different raw materials which are increasing the chains of alkanes, cycloalkanes, and tetrahydro-naphthalene aromatics
Answer: Thanks the reviewer’s comments. The corresponding revision has been made in the revised manuscript.
2.Lithium batteries have their own disadvantages, did the author consider them?
Answer: Thanks the reviewer’s comments. Yes, Lithium batteries have their own disadvantages. In fact, the application of byproduct carbon black to lithium electron conductive agent is one of its usage and according to the demand of market some other use of conduct carbon black would be adjusted.
3.The residence time needs to clarify in detail.
Answer: Thanks the reviewer’s comments. We have clarified the detail of residence time in the revised paper(Page 4).
- Elaborate more on hydrocarbon cracking.
Answer: Thanks the reviewer’s comments. We have elaborated more on hydrocarbon cracking in the revised paper.
5."The acetylene Gibbs free energy...", The details of the Gibbs energy equation can be shown as supported data.
Answer: Thanks the reviewer’s comments. The details of the Gibbs energy of acetylene which could be used as our supported material could be found in the reference 35 and 36.
6.Figure 4. Please add an error bar.
Answer: Thanks the reviewer’s comments. The error bar has been added in Figure 4 in the revised paper.
7."...both toluene and naphthalene were difficult to crack..." How did the author determine the difficulty of the crack?
Answer: Thanks the reviewer’s comments. “It shows that at 800℃, both toluene and naphthalene were difficult to crack, and a small amount of toluene was cracked to form methane and benzene.” We determined the difficulty of the crack by the amount of products. In our experiment, neither toluene nor naphthalene undergo any lysis reactions, just a very small amount of methane and benzene were produced.
8.Figure 5. Unclear image, Replace with higher quality.
Answer: Thanks the reviewer’s comments. Yes, a much clearer image have been replaced in revised paper.
9.Check the overall format of the reference. Make sure all is complete and standardize
Answer: Thanks the reviewer’s comments. Yes, we have checked the overall format of the reference in the revised paper.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.doc
Reviewer 2 Report
1. Abstract lack of information. Background study, problem statement & points out research gaps, aims & objectives, summary of methods, and novelty of research study are not clearly presented.
2. Avoids "I am", "We", and etc. in manuscript.
3. Introduction. The gap between current study and previous investigation are not clearly describe. Improvement is required.
4. What the standard method used to determined the value as shows in Table 1?
5. What the standard method used for section 2.2.2. & 2.2.3? not clear.
6. There is repetition review and method under Results and discussion. "According to the...........of 10ms could be obtained".
7. There are numerous grammatical mistakes found in manuscript. Proof-read are needed. Example, Disscussion > discussion and etc.
8. There is no method for SEM & TEM analysis. However, the authors presented the results. From where?
9. Fig. 6. There are no different of SEM image between 1400 & 1800 degree. Clarification required.
10. Fig. 8. Having good data but lack of discussions behind the trend of data. More analysis is needed.
Author Response
- Abstract lack of information. Background study, problem statement & points out research gaps, aims & objectives, summary of methods, and novelty of research study are not clearly presented.
Answer: Thanks the reviewer’s comments. Yes, we have updated the referred section in the revised paper.
- Avoids "I am", "We", and etc. in manuscript.
Answer: Thanks the reviewer’s comments. The question mentioned above has been rewritten in revised paper.
- Introduction. The gap between current study and previous investigation are not clearly describe. Improvement is required.
Answer: Thanks the reviewer’s comments. In fact, to the best of our knowledge, few literatures reported have used LCO as raw material for high temperature lysis to make acetylene and carbon black. Yes, we have rewritten in the revised paper.
- What the standard method used to determine the value as shows in Table 1?
Answer: Thanks the reviewer’s comments. We have explained all the standard method
which was used to determine the value as shown in Table 1 in revised paper.
- What the standard method used for section 2.2.2. & 2.2.3? not clear.
Answer: Thanks the reviewer’s comments. Yes, it’s our mistake to explain carefully for the methods. We have explained the detail characterization method in the revised paper.
- There is repetition review and method under Results and discussion. "According to the...........of 10ms could be obtained".
Answer: Thanks the reviewer’s comments. We have shifted this section into the experiment section.
- There are numerous grammatical mistakes found in manuscript. Proof-read are needed. Example, Disscussion > discussion and etc.
Answer: Thanks the reviewer’s comments. We have checked carefully the whole paper and changes have been make in the revised manuscript.
- There is no method for SEM & TEM analysis. However, the authors presented the results. From where?
Answer: Thanks the reviewer’s comments. The mean particle size, the aggregate structure and voids morphology of carbon blacks obtained from LCO high temperature cracking are analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM，Hitachi 8020, 5.5 kV) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM，Tecnai G2 F20). And it can be seen in revised paper in Section 2.2.2.
- Fig. 6. There are no different of SEM image between 1400 & 1800 degree. Clarification required.
Answer: Thanks the reviewer’s comments. Carbon black particles had a smaller particle size produced by 1800℃ compared to those of 1400℃. What’s more, the higher temperature makes particles have more linear chains, less end to end overlap, and larger specific surface. We have clarification more clearly in the revised paper.
- Fig. 8. Having good data but lack of discussions behind the trend of data. More analysis is needed.
Answer: Thanks the reviewer’s comments. In fact, we’ll make more analysis for carbon black obtained in our research in another paper in future.
Author Response File: Author Response.doc
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper by Zekun Li et al. Study on High Temperature Pyrolysis LCO to Acetylene and Carbon Black presents novel and interesting results that deserve to be published after minor improvements:
1. Delete the abbreviation „LCO - light cycle oil” in the title of the manuscript.
2. Consider delete or change the sentence: „As can be seen from Table 1, Yanshan LCO has high carbon content and low hydrogen content, and the content of aromatics is 82.6%". The higher carbon content has SJZHLCO. A detailed description of table 1 is presented „The composition of raw materials in table 1 showed that the C and H compositions of YSLCO, SJZHLCO and YZHCO are different. The carbon content of YSLCO and SJZHLCO is almost equivalent, but the hydrogen content of SJZHLCO is higher; the carbon content of YZHCO is lower, and the hydrogen content is the highest, reaching 11.85%.”
3. Authors need to highlight the main achievements from their research and application in the conclusion section, which are unique to this study.
4. The authors should consider reviewing the paper to ensure the language imperfections are eliminated and a single writing style is used throughout the document. e.g., Instead of 1) „uint” of mg/L in Table 1 should be „unit.”
5. The titles of references have a different format. The title of the article is written in capital letters at the beginning of words, others only in lower case. Also, the standardized format of presentation in the journal's name. Because names have been written in a different formats, one is not abbreviated, others are not.
Author Response
1. Delete the abbreviation„LCO - light cycle oil” in the title of the manuscript.Answer: Thanks the reviewer’s comments. We have changed the title of the manuscript according to your opinion in the revised manuscript.
- Consider delete or change the sentence: „As can be seen from Table 1, Yanshan LCO has high carbon content and low hydrogen content, and the content of aromatics is 82.6%". The higher carbon content has SJZHLCO. A detailed description of table 1 is presented „The composition of raw materials in table 1 showed that the C and H compositions of YSLCO, SJZHLCO and YZHCO are different. The carbon content of YSLCO and SJZHLCO is almost equivalent, but the hydrogen content of SJZHLCO is higher; the carbon content of YZHCO is lower, and the hydrogen content is the highest, reaching 11.85%.”
Answer: Thanks the reviewer’s comments. We have changed the sentence “As can be seen from Table 1, Yanshan LCO has high carbon content and low hydrogen content, and the content of aromatics is 82.6%” to “As can be seen from Table 1, Yanshan LCO has a carbon content of 89.07% and hydro-gen content of 9.17%, and the content of aromatics is 82.6%.” And “The composition of raw materials in table 1 showed that the C and H compositions of YSLCO, SJZHLCO and YZHCO are different. The carbon content of YSLCO and SJZHLCO is almost equivalent, but the hydrogen content of SJZHLCO is higher; the carbon content of YZHCO is lower, and the hydrogen content is the highest, reaching 11.85%.” to “The composition of raw materials in table 1 showed that the C and H compositions of YSLCO, SJZHLCO and YZHCO are different.” in the revised paper.
- Authors need to highlight the main achievements from their research and application in the conclusion section, which are unique to this study.
Answer: Thanks the reviewer’s comments. We have highlighted the main achievements and application in the conclusion section in our revised paper.
- The authors should consider reviewing the paper to ensure the language imperfections are eliminated and a single writing style is used throughout the document. e.g., Instead of 1) „uint” of mg/L in Table 1 should be „unit.”
Answer: Thanks the reviewer’s comments. We have checked carefully the whole paper and changes have been made in the revised manuscript.
- The titles of references have a different format. The title of the article is written in capital letters at the beginning of words, others only in lower case. Also, the standardized format of presentation in the journal's name. Because names have been written in a different formats, one is not abbreviated, others are not.
Answer: Thanks the reviewer’s comments. We have checked the reference list in our revised paper.
Author Response File: Author Response.doc
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The author has been made changes on the manuscript. The paper was accepted for publication
Reviewer 2 Report
The revised manuscript are acceptable.
