Chemical Thermodynamics—A Practical Wonderland

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The titled manuscript presents a comprehensive and pedagogic text with fundaments of chemical thermodynamics, followed by a reflection on its linking to concept of sustainability.

The manuscript is a nice piece  written by two outstanding researchers on the field of Chemical Thermodynamics.

Author Response

We accept the reviewer's recommendation to publish as is. 

Reviewer 2 Report

This short article combines a brief introduction of classical thermodynamics, at the elementary level, with non-technical discussion of sustainability. It should not be published in any peer reviewed journals.  

Author Response

We understand this reviewer's recommendation to not publish, and politely disagree.

Reviewer 3 Report

Congratulations for a very clear and easy to read manuscript. The suggestions in the introduction and in the beginning of point 2 intend to show that both authors were Physical Chemists and have a large history of teaching. The way it is written is centered in only one. 

I am not sure that the symbol the authors used to inexact differential is the most adequate when compared with the traditionally used symbol.

All the comments were included in the original text.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Lower case "d" is generally used to indicate that the differential is inexact and can be found to be used this way in the literature. This use is the authors choice and we believe it is used accurately' in the manuscript.

Please check the revised manuscript in which I have incorporated most of the reviewer's suggestions. I have differed with the reviewer's suggestions in a few places. They are:

Line 16 - Introduction - I rewrote this section to be from the two coauthors, and made appropriate minor fixes to do that.Line 30 - Since Prof Letcher and I wrote separate sections (I wrote Section 2 and he wrote Section 3) it makes sense to put in the intro to each section our initials so that it is clear as to who wrote which section.

Line 32 - Editor's comment - It is not needed in my judgment to indicate which thermodynamics book or books both of the authors used. This information is relevant in the section I wrote, but not in Prof Letcher's section.

Line 50 - "amounts" is okay

Line 52 - "you" is proper and not "we"

Line 61 - Eqn (1) Using capital D for inexact differentials is how I have always used this notation, and it is accepted internationally. So, I am sticking to capital D to denote inexact differentials, and I am consistent with that usage in this manuscript. Therefore, its use will not confuse a reader. (Please note that I am a co-author of two books on chemical thermodynamics and have used it in many publications.)

Line 69 - Okay

Line 93 - Okay

Line 107 - deleted space already

Lines with degrees C - I cannot indicate that here, but I did put in C with a degree sign (I found out how to do this in Word) in all places where this was needed in the MS. Unfortunately, in Word I could only figure out how to do that in one font size (a bit small), and I trust that you know how to do this in a compatible font size.

Line 148 - This line is okay as is, and I would prefer it to stay this way instead of replacing it with the editor's suggested version.

Lines 195 & 178 - I put in the suggested changes.

Reference (1) - I hope that I changed this to the format that you use. The other two references appeared to be okay to me as they were.

Thank You for your help in getting this manuscript in shape for publication - All the Best

Reviewer 4 Report

I found the manuscript to be both interesting and informative in that it links thermodynamics to "rea world" applications involving sustainability and the environment.  To apply thermodynamics to practical applications one must possess a basic, thorough understanding of thermodynamics.  The manuscript provides readers with several of the important definitions and concepts of thermodynamics.

I did not find any errors in the written text.  My recommendation is that the manuscript be accepted for publication in its current form.  The manuscript will hopefully encourage other potential researchers to pursue a career in an area of thermodynamics.

Author Response

We accept and appreciate the reviewer's comments about the suitability of this paper.