Microorganisms and Enzymes Used in the Biological Pretreatment of the Substrate to Enhance Biogas Production: A Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Journal

Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050)

Manuscript ID

sustainability-901031

Type

Review

Number of Pages

27

Title

Microorganisms and enzymes used in the biological pretreatment of the substrate to enhance biogas production: A review

This paper deals with review of microorganisms and enzymes for enhancement of biogas production.

It is an interesting paper, but it needs improvements before further consideration.

The major comments to be resolved are below:

Abstract needs to be improved to provide more information about approach to the topic – either approaching it as an overview or a systematic review.

Introduction needs to provide more of justification, why such a study is needed, as there is a couple of studies providing similar information.

It needs to be clearly stated, what is innovative in this review paper.

Table 1 – References / Data from – either one or the other.

Figure 1 seems to familiar to me. I have a feeling, that this particular figure has been already published by other authors.

I have the exact same feeling from Figure 2.

It is not possible to simply retake pictures from other studies.

Otherwise, the paper is nicely written, but the main issue remains – lack of systematic approach. It rather seems as simple compilation of facts and statements provided by other authors. And such an approach is not enough for a review paper.

Generally, authors need to think about type of review paper they want to present and then continue accordingly. Commonly, there are 3 types:

• A narrative review explains the existing knowledge on a topic based on all the published research available on the topic.
• A systematic review searches for the answer to a particular question in the existing scientific literature on a topic.
• A meta-analysis compares and combines the findings of previously published studies, usually to assess the effectiveness of an intervention or mode of treatment.

Also, following sections are not filled:

Supplementary Materials: The following are available online at www.mdpi.com/xxx/s1, Figure S1: title, Table

740 S1: title, Video S1: title.

741 Author Contributions: For research articles with several authors, a short paragraph specifying their individual

742 contributions must be provided. The following statements should be used “Conceptualization, X.X. and Y.Y.;

743 methodology, X.X.; software, X.X.; validation, X.X., Y.Y. and Z.Z.; formal analysis, X.X.; investigation, X.X.;

744 resources, X.X.; data curation, X.X.; writing—original draft preparation, X.X.; writing—review and editing, X.X.;

745 visualization, X.X.; supervision, X.X.; project administration, X.X.; funding acquisition, Y.Y. All authors have

Sustainability 2020, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW 20 of 27

746 read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.”, please turn to the CRediT taxonomy for the term

747 explanation. Authorship must be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the work reported.

748 Funding:

749 This research received no external funding

750 Acknowledgments: In this section you can acknowledge any support given which is not covered by the author

751 contribution or funding sections. This may include administrative and technical support, or donations in kind

752 (e.g., materials used for experiments).

753 Conflicts of Interest:

754 The authors declare no conflict of interest

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your observations, we hope we answered all the issues mention accordingly. Attached is the file with the answer, point by point. 

Hope our answer finds you well.

Best whishes,

The authors. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript entitled Microorganisms and Enzymes Used in the Biological Pretreatment of the Substrate to Enhance Biogas Production: A Review is of great interest to the authors conducting research on energy and resource recovery from lignocellulosic biomass. The enzymatic/biological pretreatment is one of the most potent techniques that shows significant advantages to enhance biogas production, although its full-scale application is limited due to financial constraints. I recommend the acceptance of the manuscript in Sustainability after minor revision. Please refer to the following comments:

• It is recommended that the authors add information about the future trends about the enzymatic pretreatment on AD to the manuscript particularly information on how to reduce the cost.

• The authors keep switching between full description and abbreviation throughout the manuscript (e.g., anaerobic digestion vs. AD). Please revise.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your observations, we appreciate very much your observations and the fact that you liked our paper. We hope we answered all the issues mention accordingly. Attached is the file with the answer, point by point. 

Hope our answer finds you well.

Best whishes,

The authors. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper has been improved. 

I wish authors good luck!

Regards,

The Reviewer