A Hybrid Modeling Framework for Membrane Separation Processes: Application to Lithium-Ion Recovery from Batteries

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

 

They proposed a hybrid modeling framework for membrane separation processes. The model is based on an Artificial Intelligence (AI) structure to model the mass transfer resistance of several experimental separations. They found that the hybrid model better represents the experimental validation sets than the phenomenological model alone. This is a piece of interesting work. Several problems need to be considered before its publication in this journal.

 

1. What is the appropriate concentration range of lithium ions when this model is used?
2. Lithium ions recovery from spent batteries is a complex process. There are a number of co-existing ions e.g., Ni2+, Co2+, Mn2+. How do these co-existing ions affect the lithium ions recovery? Can they give a prediction by this model?
3. In the title, they claimed “Application to the Lithium ions recovery from batteries”. However, there is too few content about the application.
4. A recent review on lithium extraction should be included in the context (Sep. Purif. Technol. 2021, 256, 117807).

 

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. Please see attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript entitled “A hybrid modeling framework for membrane separation processes: Application to the Lithium ions recovery from batteries“ describe that the hybrid model can better represent the experimental validation sets than the phenomenological model alone. To improve this manuscript few corrections are necessary:

1) Page 8, line 264, should be add number of figure, e.g., “Figure 4”

2) Page 9, line 267, should be “Figure 4” not “Figure 2”.

3) Page 10, line 284, should be “Figure 5” not “Figure 3”.

4) Before Figure 5, on pages 9/10 Authors should add in description for these figure number.

5) Page 6, in Table 1 in cm3 and cm2,  “3” and “2” should be in superscript.

6) Page 7, line 243 instead of (10) should be (9).

7) In whole manuscript is the lack of information why Authors chosen for analysis of PbCl2, Pb(NO3)2, Pd2+, Cd2+ presented on Figure 4 and Figure 5 and is the lack of their detailed analysis.

8) In manuscript is the lack of information about other analysed ions/compounds described in Table 1 and their detailed results (Figures with description and discussion).

9) I suggest to read carefully the whole paper once again, we can find spelling and language errors, e.g., two dots “..”, comma with dot ”,.”.

 

I recommend this article to be published in Processes after major revision.

 

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. Please see attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript studies the transport associated with Li separation using a hybrid model. In my opinion, it is suitable for publication in the Journal after the authors address the concerns as follows.

1. Does the authors consider any materials specific properties of the battery recycling process? e.g. the presence of complicated electrolyte chemicals.

2. Why only data on Pb2+/Cd2+/... as opposed to Li+ is shown in Fig. 2 &3?

3. Beyond traditional Li-ion batteries, Li metal battery is also growing fast (and batteries that include other metal anodes, e.g. Zn and Al). I believe the impact of the paper could be further improved if the author could briefly bring out this point (i.e. the rapid growth of multiple types of batteries) in the Introduction section. Here are some key relevant references:
Li metal:10.1039/C9CS00883G;
Zn: 10.1126/sciadv.abe0219; 
Al: 10.1038/s41560-021-00797-7.

 

Minor: on pg 8 line 262, reference is missing. Manuscript says "Error! Reference source not found." There are a few more similar errors.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. Please see attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Ref13 is a submitted manuscript. The unpublished work should not be cited. They need to remove it. 

Author Response

Thank you, we have addressed the reference issue.

Reviewer 2 Report

I accept revised version.

Author Response

Thank you very much.