The Possibility of Implementation of West Ukrainian Paleogene Glauconite–Quartz Sands in the Building Industry: A Case Study
, Victor Melnychuk 2, Oleksandr Stadnyk 2,3, Roman Trach 1,2, Filip Bujakowski 4, Agnieszka Kiersnowska 1, Gabriela Rutkowska 1, Leonid Skakun 5, Jacek Szer 6 and Eugeniusz Koda 1,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The current research with title “The possibility of implementation of processed mining waste in construction: a case study” submitted in the Journal Sustainability (Manuscript ID sustainability-2124738) concerns the mineralogical, geochemical and granulometric study of glauconite-quartz sands (including their limonite analogues) from W. Ukraine in order to provide estimations regarding their use in industrial applications such as building materials, glass, bricks or fillers. The manuscript is well-structured and the research design follows the appropriate experimental procedure. There are some minor corrections that should be made before the publication in the Journal Sustainability. Therefore, I suggest Minor Revisions. My specific comments are given below:
1. I think that the title is very general. In particular, you mention the implementation of processed mining waste and a case study without mentioning your research material, which is the glauconite-quartz sands (± limonite). In addition, a reference to the region of your case study should also be included. I would suggest to update the title with some amendments in order to be more specific.
2. Line 39-46: “The feasibility….environment [1,2]”: a) The sentence is very long. Please break it into smaller parts. b) What is the composition of minerals mentioned in Lines 40 and 41? c) Please avoid using “etc” and use “such as”. d) The technological aspect, which is described here is a little confusing. Please make it clearer; what do you mean by the state that allows them to be subdivided into main mineral components?
3. Line 53: Please replace “etc” with “for example”.
4. Line 54: “…and others…”: Please refer these other uses, otherwise rephrase the sentence and say “It is used in several applications such as ......”.
5. Line 100: replace “e.g.” with “for example”
6. Line 101: Regarding glauconite. The introduction section mentions and describes the aspects of glauconite-bearing sands and the types of glauconite separation, as well as the importance of glauconite as a mineral. However, in my opinion you should include in the Introduction section a short paragraph (few lines) with some main information such as the chemical formula of glauconite and the mineral type as well as potential uses in the industry.
7. Line 116: This is the first time that the Dvorovychi deposit is referred. You should briefly mention what kind of deposit is this.
8. Line 126-129: This part is a little confusing. There are many local names, which are not shown in the map (e.g. Dubno, Zdolbuniv and Ostroh, Krements mountain). It is suggested to include these names in the map. In addition, you should mention that the study region is located in W. Ukraine.
9. Line 213-215: Na2O -0.11-0.16% SO3 -0.02%, Ra -226, Th-232, K-40. What does the "-" symbol stands for? Are these negative values? In addition, the Ra, Th and K do not have units. Are these ppm?
10. Page 9, Table 2: I think that Table 2 is not mentioned within the text. Please include it. A description of the Table is also missing. As I can see MF-2 and NMF-4 show comparable mass yields for both limonite and non-limonite bearing sands. However, differences are observed in the MF-1 and MF-3 masses.
11. page 11, Figure 7: The different pictures should be numbered as a,b,c....etc
12. Line 367: “…Fe2O3 decreased from 1.99 wt.% to 0.81 wt.%” Table 3 shows 0.87 wt.%, Please correct it.
13. Table 3: a) I suggest to include two diagrams with the SiO2, Fe2O3, Al2O3, MgO and K2O contents for the limonite and non-limonite bearing sands. b) The whole Table is with 2 decimal digits for TiO2 and K2O; however, this is not the case for sample MF-1, which has three decimal digits, please clarify.
14. Figure 8: Similarly with Figure 7, the different pictures of the XRD-patterns must be numbered and include their description in the Figure caption. The mineral abbreviations must be also included in the Figure caption along with their meaning. In addition, the mineral abbreviations should be included in every XRD pattern even if they are mono-mineralic.
15. Line 378: I think it is not Fig. 4a
16. Table 4: Please select the same font size for the numbers in Table 4.
17. Line 408: “…less than 3..”: Rwp of MF-1-Lim is 3.26
18. Line 451: Tab. 5 correct with Table
19. Figure 9 is not mentioned within the text
20. Line 492: Geological conditions: Please be more specific and clarify what you mean with the term geological conditions.
21. Line 551: i.e. 0.26%, 0.87%. According to Table 3 it is wt.% not %.
22. Lin 568: Please do not use etc.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer!
We thank you for careful reading, and constructive suggestions for our manuscript. Your valuable comments and advice have improved this article.
Happy New Year!
With best regards Authors
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Due to the huge amounts of waste rocks that are generated during excavations, mining plants strive to limit the storage of waste rocks on the surface, for this purpose they are managed in various support systems and in the post-mining space. The presented issue matter is very up-to-date both in scientific and practical terms. The literature review has been done properly and is sufficient. The research methodology covers all the devices used. The results of research on mineral and chemical composition, X-ray patterns and grain size distribution curves are presented in a very clear way. The discussion of the results includes references to the literature, and is also a comparison of the results obtained. The last chapter, referring to the conclusions, covers the results of research and indicates their practical application. The structure is well organized, therefore I recommend this article for publication.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer!
We thank you for your careful reading and high evaluation of our manuscript.
Happy New Year!
with best regards Authors
