Cement and Clinker Production by Indirect Mechanosynthesis Process

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Manuscript Title: “Cement and clinker production by indirect mechanosynthesis process”

1.      In the abstract the method, focal results, and conclusion are missing.

2.      In the abstract, Author’s mention that “cement pastes were made and mechanically and structurally studied.”. It’s recommended to mention exactly what are the mechanical and structural properties that has been studied

3.      Overall formatting and spacing of the manuscript need to be adjusted.

4.      What is the difference between the previous work (Materials 2020, 13, 5045; doi:10.3390/ma13215045) and the current one. Make it clear in the end the introduction part.

5.      Introduction lacks literature. In depth literature about the indirect mechanosynthesis is required.

6.      Try to avoid the word “we” in the entire manuscript. Try to use the current research, in this study, this research, or other words.

7.      In figure 2, it should be cement paste cylinder not prisms (based on the picture given).

8.      Enhance the quality of XRD figures.

9.      Major spelling, spacing and language check is required.

1.  Discussion of the results are very shallow. Authors are recommended to add more discussion and explain the results and support your discussion with other existing literatures.

1.  Correct the error at line 251.

2. Overall, the manuscript must be improved in terms of writing language and discussing the results.

Consequently, the research area is worthy of investigation. Therefore, the reviewer is recommending the manuscript be published after substantial major revision.

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewer for all his recommendations and comments which helped us to improve our article. 
please see the attached pdf, which we hope addresses all your recommendations

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is an interesting work for publication in Construction Materials. The possibilities of clinker production from the mechanosynthesis activation of different premixes are explored. Even if the results obtained are not initially competitive, they suggest a line of research may be developed. However, several major revisions are required to improve the work: 

- The first refers to the fact that the starting route of the characterized cement production (section 3.2) is not specified. On the one hand, line 120 specifies that two hydration regulation methods will be evaluated. What do the described results correspond to? Are the results of the second method described? In addition, with which premix or clinker of those described in section 3.1 have the cement pastes been manufactured?

- Practically it is not possible to speak of a true Discussion of the results. The citations or references used to interpret or confront the results obtained are minimal or very generic. 

- Another great improvement that the text requires is a thorough review of its wording. Sometimes it is difficult to understand due to unfinished sentences, grammatical errors (proper pronouns, punctuation marks, capital letters) or duplicate words. Please review these aspects to improve the work.

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewer for all his recommendations and comments which helped us to improve our article. 
please see the attached pdf, which we hope addresses all your recommendations

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This is study about the production of clinker and cement through a combination of mechanical and thermal treatment of the raw materials. The topic is actual, since the authors present an effort to produce building materials with reduced environmental impact. The following comment should be addressed for improving the quality of the paper.

1. Please revise carefully and thoroughly the language of the manuscript.

2. Please provide an informative abstract, summarizing the materials used, the processed employed, the tests performed and the results obtained.

3.  Line 31: Please use "setting" instead of "sitting".

4. Line 35: Please use "emitted" instead of "rejected".

5. Line 39: Limestone is not a by-product.

6. Are there any studies in literature that employed mechanosynthesis. If yes, please provide details about their approach and results. Based on them, please highlight the innovative aspect of your work.

7. Please avoid repetitions. Please highlight the difference of this work from the previous one (Ref. 14).

8. Line 133: What is 0.15?

9. Line 141: How many days were the specimens stored in water?

10. Please use "XRD" instead of "DXR".

11. The use of variable gypsum content introduces differences in the composition of the produced cements, which is also depending on the employed temperature. Please explain why these differences are observed.

12. Line 282: Which is the PSD of this clinker?

13. Lines 296-298: Please show the PSD of the cement produced at 1200 oC.

14. Figure 12: Please indicate on the image the phases detected. EDS analysis would confirm the claims of the authors.

15. The mechanical performance of the produced cements is weak. For which applications would these cements be suitable? Is there any perspective to improve the properties of these cements? Please include in the manuscript answers on these questions.  

 

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewer for all his recommendations and comments which helped us to improve our article. 
please see the attached pdf, which we hope addresses all your recommendations

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Most of the comments have been addressed. 

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for his remarks and comments which had a positive impact on the quality of our article

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript is improved. Please check the thoroughly for language-related mistakes.

Lines 67-71 can be questioned. The authors claim "mechanosynthetically activated materials shows improved mechanical performance of cementitious or geopolymeric materials". Which materials are compared? Moreover, the mechanical strength achieved in this study is quite low. Can we still mention an "improved performance"?

 

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for this remark, which shows that our paragraph can create confusion. For this reason, we have added more details in the introduction on how mechanosynthesis can improve mechanical properties. We have given more details about cited references as [20] of Bouchenafa et al. and reference [26] et al. ex et al. we have taken an example with cement substitution reference and geopolymers reference (please see lines 68 to 80).

We have added these details to show that mechanical activation can improve pozzolanic reactions of co-product (fly ashes and slag) when we substitute cement with this milled co-product and improve mechanical properties. The same thing where we have given an example for improving mechanical properties for geopolymers in the case of reference [26] Alex et al. where in this reference show that mechanical activation (milling) can activate geopolymerization reactions and improve mechanical properties. 

We invite the reviewer to read the added paragraphs “ Using planetary ball milling for modifying and activating slag and fly ashes and then substituting cement CEMI at 50%, Bouchenfa et al. [20]…….. activity.”

“Alex et al. [26] studied …………products.

We thank the reviewer again for this comment, which allows us to give more details and avoid confusion.