Evaluation of Annona diversifolia Seed Extract as A Natural Coagulant for Water Treatment

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors

In opinion of this reviewer, some sugestions are:

TITLE: Be forcefull in the title;  I mean, "Extraction and Application of Annona diversifolia...." for what or what its the plus, regarding actual works?

ABSTRACT: this section is the last redaction, traditinally include a brief introduction, explicit objective, M&M, results, conclusion, and delimitation of the work and perspectives; some of this are include, other not

FIGURES AND TABLES, are difficult to follow, some figures are eligible and some tables are confuse (specific notes in manuscript)

DISCUSSION: as recomended in the ojective (and title), the results can be impact in the water sector, energy, co2, urban agriculture, what is the importance that use of this procedure in water waste reuse

CONCLUSION: limitations and perspectives, for instance, is usefull in a smart cities?

Other specific suggestion are in the manuscript (some colors ara for self revision)

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

In this study, the authors investigated to evaluate the use of a natural coagulant-aid extracted from Annona diversifolia seed in terms of the reduction of turbidity for the kaolin suspension, etc.

The study is very interesting and the results are presented very well.

Additionally, the process was analyzed using FTIR and TEM analyses, and zeta potential measurements along with RSM for the optimization studies.

There are moderate corrections to the manuscript.

Please find the attached file where you can see my corrections/remarks in the manuscripts.

Please also consider the following points:

·      Abstract: Please provide the general conclusion/outcome from this study in a couple of sentences...

·      Modify the subtitles

·      Give the information (name, company, purity, etc.) of all chemicals used in this study in the section “2.1 Materials”.

·      Include “2.2. Methods”.

·      Please specify the water whether it is tap water, pure water, distilled water or deionized water, etc.

·      Zeta potential measurements: Was the surface charge of the kaolin sample measured?

·      Please provide the information about the kaolin sample. Where was it obtained? The particle size? The purity?

·      This low ratio of the suspension (0.015% w/w) explains the pretty low NTU for the kaolin suspension! Explanation welcome.

·      What chemicals were used to adjust the pH of the suspensions? Name, company, purity, etc.

·      What coagulant was used for the experiments? Name, company, purity, etc.

·      Please provide better figures (Figure 1). Not clear.

·      Table 1: What was the measurement pH?

·      Also the zeta potential of the kaolin sample?

·      How did you measure the size of the sample? What about the size of the kaolin sample?

·      Figure 3: If you carried out the experiments as a function of pH, there needed to analyze the surface charge of the samples concerning the pH as well.

·      Dosage of what in the figures? make it clear...

·      Did you measure the floc sizes?

·      Is there any information about this?

·      It could be perfect to sketch the coagulation mechanism so that readers will understand the adsorption process well...

·      Also, the manuscript contains some grammatical problems and needs careful reorganization in terms of grammar and spelling.

·      See the attached file where you can find my corrections/comments and carefully answer them one by one.

Finally, the paper should be accepted after moderate corrections/revisions and should be considered to be published in the Journal of Sustainability.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

BRIEF SUMMARY

Interesting and well-written work, I have only a few remarks/corrections, which I present below. If authors improve/answer them, I could give the final “green light” for publication of this work in “Sustainability” journal.

SPECIFIC COMMENTS

1.     Lines 27-28: It is not necessary to repeat all the details of the corresponding author. Just write “*Correspondence” and delete the rest text of lines 28-29.

2.     Lines 36, 46, 72, 102, 113, 122, 123, 160, 169, 170 and 173: As the letters of the symbols are all capital, begin each word with capital, f.e. write “Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR)”. Follow the same for all the lines I point.

3.     Figure 1, Tables 2, 3 and 5: Each Table and Figure, with tis title/explanation, should be included in the same page. Take care this for this.

4.     CONCLUSIONS: This paragraph must be extended, at least to double size.The authors here should point the original parts of their work and their contribution in the existing literature. Why is this work important? Which are the new results/conclusion?

5.     REFERENCES: Please check that all the references (names of authors and journals, titles, numbers of volumes and pages) are correct. Also check if you have followed the instructions of the journal about how to write the references and ensure that all the references are part of this workIs it necessary to write the DOI for each one of them? I also find the number of 55 references too big, did you really use all of them?

I would like to check it one more time before the final publication.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf