Waste Glass-Derived Tobermorite Carriers for Ag⁺ and Zn²⁺ Ions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Authors present the result of an experimental research on the preparation of tobermorite starting from waste glasses (green and amber) as aluminosilicate source. The ion exchange study is subsequent to the synthesis and its efficiency has been checked with antibacterial activity. The paper is well written, and the scientific claims are well explained. The authors clearly describe the selection of the materials compositions as well as the characterization methods. The reference list is updated and complete, as far as I could retrieve in SCOPUS. 

The manuscript could be publishable in JCS after addressing the following points:

 

2. Materials and Methods 

2.1. Materials

Line 73: "...ground in a steel ball mill to pass 125 μm." Please indicate if authors adopted a wet or dry milling operation.

Line 75: Substitute the location of the equipment (Materials Research Institute, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK) with the producer name.

2.2. Hydrothermal Synthesis and Characterization

Line 87: "...XRD, FTIR and 29Si MAS NMR....." Could you provide info on the equipment producers?

 

3. Results

3.2. Antimicrobial Properties of Chitosan-Tobermorite Composites

Line 232: Table 3 does not give any real evidence of results different from those already presented in Figure 6. I propose to delete Table 3, describe the Petri dish aspects in the text and report in FIgure 2 the images of CTG4-Ag and CTA4-Ag with the indication of the inhibition halo thickness.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors obtained potential functional material from waste glass. This could be an interesting way to resolve the ecological problem with a very long decomposition time of glass in natural conditions.

I have only a few comments.

Lines 87-88 when discussing it would be better to provide these pattern or their lines in comparison to the experimental pattern. 

 

You mention in the abstract that the best crystallinity is obtained in 7 days, while the best uptake occurs in 72 hours (3 days) or 6 hours. Any suggestions why this is so???

 

I missed in the text direct naming of obtained material as potential "functional" or "advanced" sorbent. 

 

I also missed any information on the discussion of how much tobermorite we require and how much glass we have. For example, if we convert all-glass wasted annually to tobermorite we this tobermorite whether this tobermorite will be in demand (purely hypothetically).

 

Which industries could possibly use 11 A tobermorite and for which application?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx