Modeling Tetracycline Adsorption onto Blast Furnace Slag Using Statistical and Machine Learning Approaches
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI reviewed the article on tittle “ Adsorption of Tetracycline Using Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag: Culmination of Statistical and Machine Learning Approach to Model the Effects of Process Parameters” , so author needs major revision ,
1. Tittle should be revised its too much longer
2. Line # 21“a severe environmental concern” should be “a serious environmental problem”.
3. Line # 23“aqueouss solution” should be “aqueous solution”.
4. Line # 26. The experimental findings should be “The experimental results”.
5. Figures needs enough resolution please revised
6. This manuscript is full of grammatical and spelling errors and also have bad wording as a mention before, so its needs complete revision.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageEnglish very difficult to understand/incomprehensible
Author Response
We thank the anonymous reviewer for their collective comments and suggestions to improve the quality of the manuscript. As per the suggestion of the reviewer, the necessary corrections have been made and the same has been highlighted in the revised manuscript.
- The title should be revised its too much longer
Response: We thank the referee for the comments, the modified title has been added to the revised manuscript.
Revision: “Modeling Tetracycline Adsorption onto Blast Furnace Slag by Statistical and Machine Learning Approaches”
- Line # 21“a severe environmental concern” should be “a serious environmental problem”.
Response: We sincerely thank the reviewer for the comment. We revised the manuscript according to the suggestion of the reviewer.
- Line # 23“aqueouss solution” should be “aqueous solution”.
Response: We sincerely thank the reviewer. The correction has been made in the revised manuscript.
- Line # 26. The experimental findings should be “The experimental results”.
Response: We sincerely thank the reviewer. The correction has been made in the revised manuscript.
- Figures needs enough resolution please revised
Response: Thank you for your helpful suggestion to improve the quality of images. We have incorporated the high-resolution images in the revised manuscript for a better understanding of the readers.
Revision: Figures 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 8 are revised
- This manuscript is full of grammatical and spelling errors and also have bad wording as a mention before, so its needs complete revision.
Response: We thank you for your comments regarding the grammar and spelling. We have thoroughly reviewed and revised the grammar and language errors with the help of a native English speaker. We hope that the current version of the manuscript matches with journal standards.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsRangappa and coworkers report the use of modified ground granulated blast furnace slag for removing tetracycline. The topic is in line with the scope of this journal, and the paper is well-organized. However, it still needs some improvements. I suggest that the paper can be accepted after moderate revision. Some suggestions are as follows:
1. Please explain why the specific surface areas increased from 5 to 133 m2/g after oxalic acid treatment. Also, how are the mesopores generated?
2. The quality of Figure 8 can be improved because the molecular structures seem indistinct.
3. The authors state that “the adsorption of TC onto GGBS-Ox was predominated by pore-filling, H-bonding interactions, and electrostatic interactions”. To demonstrate the pore-filling mechanism, nitrogen adsorption experiments before and after TC adsorption should be performed.
4. As the authors revealed, the adsorption of TC follows the Langmuir model. So, what is the theoretical maximum adsorption capacity?
Author Response
We thank the reviewer for their collective comments and suggestions to improve the quality of the manuscript. As per the suggestion of the reviewer, the necessary corrections have been made, and the same has been highlighted in the revised manuscript.
- 1. Please explain why the specific surface areas increased from 5 to 133 m2/g after oxalic acid treatment. Also, how are the mesopores generated?
Response: Thank you the reviewer for the comment on the specific surface area. The manuscript has been revised to include an explanation for the increase in surface area of GGBS-Ox.
Revision: [Page No.: 6, Lines: 262-267]
Oxalic acid treatment eliminates the surface impurities, as a result of oxalic acid treatment, the adsorbent has an optimal microporous and mesoporous configuration, thereby rendering it highly suitable for the intended purpose [43]. It facilitates the formation of aluminosilicate through the reaction between GGBS and an alkaline solution and further, the formation of calcium oxalate contributes to the increased surface area [33,34].
- The quality of Figure 8 can be improved because the molecular structures seem indistinct.
Response: We thank the reviewer for the valuable comment on Figure 8. We have revised the manuscript by addressing the issue of indistinct molecular structures in Figure 8. These enhancements ensure clearer and more defined molecular representations, aiming to improve visual clarity of Figure 8.
- The authors state that “the adsorption of TC onto GGBS-Ox was predominated by pore-filling, H-bonding interactions, and electrostatic interactions”. To demonstrate the pore-filling mechanism, nitrogen adsorption experiments before and after TC adsorption should be performed.
Response: Thank you for highlighting the importance of demonstrating the pore-filling mechanism in our study. In response to your suggestion, we have conducted a nitrogen adsorption-desorption experiment after TC adsorption and compared it with before adsorption.
Revision: [Page No.: 6, Lines: 267-271]
The surface area of the GGBS-Ox was reduced to 91 m2/g after the adsorption of TC. The decrease in surface area of GGBS-Ox may be attributed to the attachment of the TC molecules to the pores. The decrease in surface area observed after the adsorption of the TC indicates that pore filling is involved in the removal mechanism [44].
- As the authors revealed, the adsorption of TC follows the Langmuir model. So, what is the theoretical maximum adsorption capacity?
Response: Thank you for the valuable comment. As per your suggestion, the theoretical maximum adsorption capacity (~76 mg/g) is included in the manuscript and is also represented in Table 6.
Revision: [Page No.: 15, Lines: 483-486]
The Langmuir model offers a better representation of the isotherm data with a maximum adsorption capacity of around 76 mg/g and a high determination coefficient (R2) value (Figure 6). This confirms that the adsorption of TC onto GGBS-Ox involves a monolayer adsorption process.
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe contents of the manuscript titled "Adsorption of Tetracycline Using Ground Granulated Blast 2 Furnace Slag : Culmination of Statistical and Machine Learning 3 Approach to Model the Effects of Process Parameters " are within the scope of this journal. My specific comments are listed below :
1. The units must be consistent throughout the manuscript.
2. Why didn't you include temperature as a factor in the experimental design ?
I recommend the publication of this article after minor revision.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
We thank the anonymous reviewer for their collective comments and suggestions to improve the quality of the manuscript. As per the suggestion of the reviewer, the necessary corrections have been made, and the same has been highlighted in the revised manuscript.
- The units must be consistent throughout the manuscript.
Response: We thank the reviewer for the comment regarding consistent units in our manuscript. We have thoroughly reviewed and revised the manuscript to ensure all units are now consistent throughout.
- Why didn't you include temperature as a factor in the experimental design?
Response: We thank the reviewer for the insightful comment regarding the exclusion of temperature as a factor in our experimental design. We incorporated the temperature effect on adsorption in section 3.11 adsorption thermodynamics. However, temperature varies linearly as shown in Figure S8 and to reduce the number of experimental runs in RSM, we opted not to include temperature as a variable in the design.
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsIn this study, the authors test various conditions for the adsorption of tetracycline by modified ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS), including pH, contact time, and stirring speed. Several methods are compared to model the data, including response surface methodology (RSM), artificial neural networks (ANN), and random forests (RF).
I have the following comments:
Line 71, 72, 94, 103, 140, 525: There are extra spaces on these lines.
Line 121: There should be a comma after "zinc".
Line 150: What method was used for filtration?
Line 223: "Steering speed" should be "stirring speed".
Line 336: Why were 2, 7, and 12 the only pH values tested? If pH is such an important factor in the adsorption of TC, would it make sense to test other pH values as well? Can we be sure the relationship between pH and adsorption is quadratic without testing more pH values?
Table 4: This table is unclear. Is the model in the first line intended to be RSM? Based on this comparison, are there advantages to using ANN or RF compared to RSM?
Line 429: Is there supposed to be another step listed here before "mass transfer of pollutant"?
Lines 589-597: Is there a reason for these lines to be bolded?
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageEnglish language is fine with minor proofreading required.
Author Response
We thank the anonymous reviewer for their collective comments and suggestions to improve the quality of the manuscript. As per the suggestion of the reviewer, the necessary corrections have been made, and the same has been highlighted in the revised manuscript.
Line 71, 72, 94, 103, 140, 525: There are extra spaces on these lines.
Line 121: There should be a comma after "zinc".
Line 150: What method was used for filtration?
Line 223: "Steering speed" should be "stirring speed".
Response: We thank the reviewer for pointing out the significant errors. Subsequently, we have made the necessary revisions and addressed all the aforesaid points as recommended by the reviewer and addressed the filtration method used in synthesis of adsorbent.
Line 336: Why were 2, 7, and 12 the only pH values tested? If pH is such an important factor in the adsorption of TC, would it make sense to test other pH values as well? Can we be sure the relationship between pH and adsorption is quadratic without testing more pH values?
Response: We thank the reviewer the valuable comment. The pH selected for our study (2, 7, and 12) was determined based on the constraints of the RSM based BBD, which permits the use of only three parameters (two endpoints ranging from -1 to +1 and one centre point at 0). Recognizing the importance of pH, the experiment on the point of zero charge conducted over a broad range, suggests that the neutral pH is anticipated to have a stronger impact compared to both acidic and basic pH values, as explained in section 3.12.
Table 4: This table is unclear. Is the model in the first line intended to be RSM? Based on this comparison, are there advantages to using ANN or RF compared to RSM?
Response: We extend our sincere gratitude for your valuable comment concerning the table presentation and comparison of ANN, RF, and RSM. Since BBD is derived from RSM, it was represented as BBD and it led to confusion in Table 4. To avoid any possible confusion, we have revised the table according to your suggestion.
ANN and RF possess the advantage over Response Surface Methodology (RSM). As RSM's effectiveness lies in its operation within defined value ranges, ANN and RF models showcase versatility as they are not confined by these limitations (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sajce.2020.12.003 and DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/c9ra06450h). However, it's essential to note that to achieve higher accuracy in predictions, both RF and ANN models often necessitate a greater number of runs compared to RSM, due to their capability to handle complex relationships and patterns within the data, as it is explained in section 2.5, 5.6, 2.7 and 3.6.
Line 429: Is there supposed to be another step listed here before "mass transfer of pollutant"?
Response: We would like to thank the reviewer for the comment. According to our examination of the literature, it appears that no specific step typically precedes the mass transfer of pollutant. Our findings align with this consensus in the literature, some of them are https://doi.org/10.3390/pr8091194, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jece.2017.09.007, https://doi.org/10.3390/su132111560 and https://doi.org/10.1007/s42452-021-04245-9s.
Lines 589-597: Is there a reason for these lines to be bolded?
Response: We have revised the manuscript by removing the bolded lines to ensure a consistent.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authorsnow it's looking good and should be accepted for publication.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe paper can be accepted in the present form.
