Study on Sintering Characteristics of Ultra-Poor Vanadium-Titanium Magnetite
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript “Study on Sintering Characteristics of Ultra-poor Vanadium-titanium Magnetite” is well written and I find it an interesting article.
Nevertheless, there are some spelling and wording mistakes that should be revised. I have listed some of them, it is up to the authors to improve them or not; they are just recommendations searching for a better and serious final appearance of the article when published.
Line 11. The hyphen is missing: high-grade.
Line 12. "were" instead of "was".
Line 13. One hyphen has to be deleted: "microstructure".
Line 14. "was" instead of "were".
Line 25. Include the article: "the acid pellet".
Line 35. One space is missing before the square bracket.
Lines 36, 39. Attention when separating the words.
Lines 40, 57, 204, 222, Figure 7, Figure 8, line 381, 383, 387, 389, 389bis, 400, 402, 409. There is one space missing.
Lines 42, 56. The article is missing: "a blast furnace".
Line 44. Use plural for “drawback".
Line 49. Please, delete the double article.
Lines 51, 53, 53bis, 55, 157. Place correctly the comma.
Line 54. “For the shortage of the production…”
Line 59. Use plural for “pellet".
Line 67. One space is missing between the numbers in the bracket.
Line 70. “comprehensive” and “index” are strangely repeated in the same sentence. Please, rewrite.
Line 70. “through the comprehensive”, the article was missing.
Lines 71, 120, 200, 204, 387, 409. There is a space to be deleted.
Lines 73, 194, 200, 235, and more. “microstructure” instead of “mirco-structure”, “micro-structure” or “-microstructure”.
Line 83. “and with a basicity”.
Table 1. The basicity column should be aligned.
Tables 2, Table 3, lines 264, 269, and more. The symbol for degrees is “°C”, it is not placed up in the manuscript.
Figure 1. “of the experimental”
Table 3. There should be a space between “CO214%”.
Table 5. The bottom line seems to have various widths.
Line 134. There is no need in repeating the words “vertical sintering speed”; please, rewrite.
Line 138. Please, change to “attributed”.
Figure 2. I do not understand the use of capital letters in “Sintering Process Parameters”.
Line 161. “sinter”.
Line 166. The presentation of the formula seems a little bit odd, please use the equations tool in Word to give it a better look.
Line 167. When using variables in the text, I would recommend using italics to highlight them and distinguish them easily.
Line 168. “cross-section”
Line 169. “sintering time”
Line 173. I think is “and” instead of “an”.
Figure 3. “(a) DB; (b) HW; (c) JL; and (d) YT”. There were several spaces missing and the presentation looked unfinished.
Line 184. Please, explain why minus 5.
Line 185. “R=0.33 but”
Figure 4. “self-fluxing, and high-basicity”
Line 207. Do not start a sentence with a number; please, add an article before.
Line 213. “The structure of the sinter”
Line 221. “in a granular or dendrite”
Figure 5. Again, the same mistakes as in Figure 3: missing spaces, unfinished presentation of data. Please change the sign (d), it seems different from the others.
Figure 7. I would recommend changing the references: There are images (a) and (b), and in Figure (b) there are references a, b, and c. It could lead to a misunderstanding of the reader.
“eV” instead of “ev” in the figure caption.
Line 236. “amount” instead of “mount”. Please, consider using different words to enrich the text (it is repeated in the same line).
Line 246. Maybe using the past would fit better in the sentence.
Equations (1)-(13). Maybe it would be better to use arrows (→ or ⇋) instead of “=”.
Line 260. “concentrate, there”
Line 262. “solid - solid and liquid – solid” or “solid-solid and liquid-solid”. I would choose the second option.
Line 264. If separation is needed, used so-lid instead of sol-id.
Line 275. For avoiding the use of the first person in the text, I would rewrite it as follows: “This suggests that if sintering with a low-temperature oxidation”.
Figure 9. There are some missing spaces. “free energy change of CaO and oxides versus temperature”.
Line 282. “of the acid”
Line 284. “not true” is not a high-English expression. Please, rewrite.
Line 288. “inhomogeneous”
Line 300. “1%”.
Line 315. Please, unify criteria through the whole manuscript: “Figure 11 (a)” or “Figure 11(a)”.
Line 326. Maybe sometimes, instead of using repeated times “because of”, authors could consider “due to”, for example.
Line 341. “self-fluxing, and high-basicity”
Line 342. “Acid sinter, due to the low”
Line 344. “Therefore” is higher-English than “so”.
Line 348, 357. “of the blast furnace”
Line 356. “high-basicity sinter do not have good permeability”
Line 362. “evaluated by the comprehensive index method”
Line 365. “in [12]” or “in reference [12]”.
Line 365. “the chosen indexes”
Line 370. “comprehensive index of the (a, choose the better fit) first group”
Line 371. Maybe it should be more accurate “defining”.
Line 372. “Fi is the comprehensive index”
Line 381. “As seen from Table 6, the self-fluxing”
Line 418. Please, delete the text “References must be numbered in order of appearance in the text (including citations in tables and legends) and listed”
Line 461. Please, delete the line.
Figures. Some of them have a much wider space between the figure itself and their caption.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Influence of Coke Ratio on Sintering Behavior of High-Chromium Vanadium-Titanium Magnetite”.
Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. Particularly, I sincerely thank the editors for they provide to me the very professional and careful reviewers in my paper .
In addition, I sincerely thank the reviewers for he/she pointed out the unclear section and gave us some constructive suggestions. Those are all valuable and give me a big favor. Furthermore, we think he/she could give us a further help in our later researches.
But first of all, we will show the modification of this paper and give the description of the modification. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as follows:
comments: Line 11. The hyphen is missing: high-grade.
Line 12. "were" instead of "was".
Line 13. One hyphen has to be deleted: "microstructure".
Line 14. "was" instead of "were".
Line 25. Include the article: "the acid pellet".
Line 35. One space is missing before the square bracket.
Lines 36, 39. Attention when separating the words.
Lines 40, 57, 204, 222, Figure 7, Figure 8, line 381, 383, 387, 389, 389bis, 400, 402, 409. There is one space missing.
Lines 42, 56. The article is missing: "a blast furnace".
Line 44. Use plural for “drawback".
Line 49. Please, delete the double article.
Lines 51, 53, 53bis, 55, 157. Place correctly the comma.
Line 54. “For the shortage of the production…”
Line 59. Use plural for “pellet".
Line 67. One space is missing between the numbers in the bracket.
Line 70. “comprehensive” and “index” are strangely repeated in the same sentence. Please, rewrite.
Line 70. “through the comprehensive”, the article was missing.
Lines 71, 120, 200, 204, 387, 409. There is a space to be deleted.
Lines 73, 194, 200, 235, and more. “microstructure” instead of “mirco-structure”, “micro-structure” or “-microstructure”.
Line 83. “and with a basicity”.
Table 1. The basicity column should be aligned.
Tables 2, Table 3, lines 264, 269, and more. The symbol for degrees is “°C”, it is not placed up in the manuscript.
Figure 1. “of the experimental”
Table 3. There should be a space between “CO214%”.
Table 5. The bottom line seems to have various widths.
Line 134. There is no need in repeating the words “vertical sintering speed”; please, rewrite.
comments: Line 138. Please, change to “attributed”.
Response: Yes, we revised the paper according to the comments.
comments: Figure 2. I do not understand the use of capital letters in “Sintering Process Parameters”.
Response: We re-typeset Figure 2 to make it easier for readers to understand.
comments: Line 161. “sinter”.
Line 166. The presentation of the formula seems a little bit odd, please use the equations tool in Word to give it a better look.
Line 167. When using variables in the text, I would recommend using italics to highlight them and distinguish them easily.
Line 168. “cross-section”
Line 169. “sintering time”
Line 173. I think is “and” instead of “an”.
Response: Yes, we revised the paper according to the comments.
comments: Figure 3. “(a) DB; (b) HW; (c) JL; and (d) YT”. There were several spaces missing and the presentation looked unfinished.
Response:We deleted "(a) DB; (b) HW; (c) JL; and (d) YT" and rewritten the title. Because PVTM mine is a mixed mine, there is no obvious difference between the four images. Does not affect the conclusions in the article.
comments: Line 184. Please, explain why minus 5.
Response: We have changed it to <5mm, which is consistent with line 123 to facilitate readers’ understanding.
comments: Line 185. “R=0.33 but”
Figure 4. “self-fluxing, and high-basicity”
Response: Yes, we revised the paper according to the comments.
comments: Line 207. Do not start a sentence with a number; please, add an article before.
Response: We changed it to "Approximately 70% of the magnetite in the raw material is oxidized to hematite. "
comments: Line 213. “The structure of the sinter”
Line 221. “in a granular or dendrite”
Figure 5. Again, the same mistakes as in Figure 3: missing spaces, unfinished presentation of data. Please change the sign (d), it seems different from the others.
Response: Yes, we revised the paper according to the comments.
comments: Figure 7. I would recommend changing the references: There are images (a) and (b), and in Figure (b) there are references a, b, and c. It could lead to a misunderstanding of the reader.
Response: We have changed a, b, and c in the picture on the left to 1, 2, 3, so that the reader is not confused.
comments: “eV” instead of “ev” in the figure caption.
Line 236. “amount” instead of “mount”. Please, consider using different words to enrich the text (it is repeated in the same line).
comments: Line 246. Maybe using the past would fit better in the sentence.
Response: Yes, we revised the paper according to the comments.
Equations (1)-(13). Maybe it would be better to use arrows (→ or ⇋) instead of “=”.
Response:We refer to classic textbooks and related literature in this industry, and use "=" to better express the meaning of the reaction, so we did not modify it.
comments: Line 260. “concentrate, there”
Line 262. “solid - solid and liquid – solid” or “solid-solid and liquid-solid”. I would choose the second option.
Line 264. If separation is needed, used so-lid instead of sol-id.
Line 275. For avoiding the use of the first person in the text, I would rewrite it as follows: “This suggests that if sintering with a low-temperature oxidation”.
Figure 9. There are some missing spaces. “free energy change of CaO and oxides versus temperature”.
Line 282. “of the acid”
Response: Yes, we revised the paper according to the comments.
comments: Line 284. “not true” is not a high-English expression. Please, rewrite.
Response: We rewrite it as "The bonding of the self-fluxing sinter was different from that of the acid sinter"
comments: Line 288. “inhomogeneous”
Line 300. “1%”.
Line 315. Please, unify criteria through the whole manuscript: “Figure 11 (a)” or “Figure 11(a)”.
Line 326. Maybe sometimes, instead of using repeated times “because of”, authors could consider “due to”, for example.
Line 341. “self-fluxing, and high-basicity”
Line 342. “Acid sinter, due to the low”
Line 344. “Therefore” is higher-English than “so”.
Line 348, 357. “of the blast furnace”
Line 356. “high-basicity sinter do not have good permeability”
Line 362. “evaluated by the comprehensive index method”
Line 365. “in [12]” or “in reference [12]”.
Line 365. “the chosen indexes”
Line 370. “comprehensive index of the (a, choose the better fit) first group”
Line 371. Maybe it should be more accurate “defining”.
Line 372. “Fi is the comprehensive index”
Line 381. “As seen from Table 6, the self-fluxing”
Line 418. Please, delete the text “References must be numbered in order of appearance in the text (including citations in tables and legends) and listed”
Line 461. Please, delete the line.
Figures. Some of them have a much wider space between the figure itself and their caption.
Response: Yes, we revised the paper according to the comments.
We tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes in the manuscript. These changes will not influence the content and framework of the paper..
We appreciate for Editors/Reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval.
Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.
Sincerely
S.T. Yang
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript should be revised. The decision of reviewer based on:
- Tables content non-described parameters, e.g. Table 1 what is YD,MF etc? Table 4 -what is TFe?
- Fig.9 - there is no descriptions in text how these dependancies ear obtained.
Many such mistaces cannot allow undestand text and conclusion.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Study on Sintering Characteristics of Ultra-poor Vanadium-titanium Magnetite”.
Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. Particularly, I sincerely thank the editors for they provide to me the very professional and careful reviewers in my paper .
But first of all, we will show the modification of this paper and give the description of the modification. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as follows:
comments: 1 Tables content non-described parameters, e.g. Table 1 what is YD,MF etc? Table 4 -what is TFe?
Response: Yes, we revised the paper according to the comments.We have added descriptions of related English abbreviations that appear in Figure 1 and Figure 4.
Line83-92: “The YD ore, MF ore, and ZF ore are common iron concentrates without vanadium and titanium elements. The return fines, waste slag, and BF slag are all waste materials discharged by the plant. The quicklime is added to the sintering raw materials to adjust the Basicity. The chemical composition of the raw materials and the coke breeze are listed in Tables 1 and 2. The TFe in Table 1 represents total iron, that is, the proportion of various forms of iron in the ore. As listed in Table 1, the total iron (TFe) contents of 4 kinds of PVTM magnetite are higher than that of ores ML and YD, and the TiO2 content of PVTM magnetite varies from 1.45% to 3.15% along with the V2O5 content varies from 0.37% to 0.59%. Therefore, it will have a significant effect on the iron grade of the sinter.”
comments: 2. Fig.9 - there is no descriptions in text how these dependancies ear obtained.
Response: We got this picture based on the Thermodynamics Handbook. We added Reference 19 on line 267 and modified the title of Figure 9 so that readers can better understand
comments: Many such mistaces cannot allow undestand text and conclu
Response: We have made changes to the full text so that readers can better understand this article. For example, the description of the sintering process parameters has been added in lines 105-117.
We tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes in the manuscript. These changes will not influence the content and framework of the paper..
We appreciate for Editors/Reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval.
Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.
Sincerely
S.T. Yang
Author Response File: 
Author Response.doc
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Manuscript after revison is good and may be published
